


White

by GreenBottle



Series: Miracles [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Mpreg, Original Character(s), Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 16:16:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10494693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenBottle/pseuds/GreenBottle
Summary: Then there was another kind, like Jay, and that was the best kind to be.





	

_This story is more about love, and less about sex. This is the first time that I have managed to complete a piece of writing, and I am feeling considerably proud of myself. Being an archiveofourown debutante, I would greatly appreciate your feedback and any comments that you may have. As much as I like to see my story finished and published, I have enjoyed writing it even more, and I am willing to boastfully admit that I've loved every minute of it._

 

Jay’s mommy was the prettiest lady in the world. She had long, blond hair and the one eye that she had left, was a deep, vibrant green. On the right side of her face, where the other eye should have been, mommy had a large, pink scar going all the way down to her neck and chest. The scar was smooth to the touch and shiny, and Jay loved it, just as he loved his mommy.  
Jay and his mommy lived in a little hut at the foot of the mountain, where no one else lived, except for the two of them, and the forest animals. There were other ladies living not far away, down in the valley, but they did not like mommy, as mommy always explained.  
Mommy said that when she was a little girl, she’d lived in a place called the Capital, that was full of people. Some of them were women, like mommy, and some of them were men, that the women had to answer to. Then there was another kind, like Jay, and that was the best kind to be.  
Jay used to feel very sorry for the women when he was younger, but after meeting some of those living in the camp down in the valley, he no longer pitied them.  
Two winters ago, when Jay and his mommy had been out hunting, they had seen a group of the women from the camp, chasing a young girl into the forest and throwing stones at her. The girl was crying and begging for her life when they caught her, but the women called her a whore and started kicking and beating her horribly, even though she was screaming and telling them to stop. By the time they finished with her, her arms and legs were bended weirdly in all directions, and all that was left of her face was a red pulp, through which a strange, wheezing noise was coming out. Mommy waited until all the other women were gone, and only then did she allow Jay to climb down the tree, on which they were hiding. She took a knife out of her pocket and sliced the injured girl’s throat, saying that it was mercy.  
‘They did this to me’ she had told Jay that day, pointing at the large scar on her face.  
After that day, mommy started explaining things to him.  
The women from the camp were the ones that the men discarded as of no use, said mommy. They were either too stupid and ugly to be married, or they had failed to produce sons for their husbands. Women could have many children, but mostly gave birth to girls, that no one wanted. Daughters were expensive – to have any chance of marrying, they needed dowries, and that wasn’t cheap. Even to get them a job at the docks or in the warehouses cost money, that many families struggled to put together, and brothels would only take the clever, pretty ones. In poorer families, having lots of female babies, while hoping for a male one as a result of the next pregnancy, was a common thing. Because there were so many of them, if the girls weren’t married or working by the age of eighteen, their families had to take them to one of the many women’s camps across the country, where they were to remain for the rest of their lives.  
Maybe those camps were not such bad places to go to, wondered Jay, deciding to ask mommy. Mommy just smiled sadly and few days later, for the first time she took him down to the camp with her, when she went to trade the meat and furs for soap and flour.  
It was a dirty, horrible place, full of half-starved, sad looking women, living in barracks, that made Jay’s and mommy’s little hut look like a palace.  
Mommy said that there was no reason for them to live like that. They had been given land for farming and a forest for hunting, but they all preferred to argue, rather than to work together. The only thing that unified them, was their hatred for the new girls, especially those, who were pregnant, and therefore called whores.  
Mommy explained that some of the girls had been already expecting, when their husbands changed their minds about them, some had been raped, sometimes by their own brothers or fathers. Some had been stupid enough to fall for a pretty boy, who promised them marriage, like mommy had been.  
Mommy had been lucky enough to be born into a good family, and she’d been fed well and looked after. She’d been even sent to school, although she’d never quite managed to learn to read and write. Her father had bought her a nice job at the laundry, but she’d wanted more than that. Jay’s grandfather had no choice but to throw her out, when he’d found out that she was pregnant.  
The women from the camp had poured hot oil over mommy’s face, and they would have killed her, if she hadn’t managed to escape. By the time Jay was born, she had already built them a nice hut at the foot of the mountain.  
Jay was not allowed to wear trousers, and mommy plaited his long hair with a bow and dressed him in skirts, ever since he was little. Mommy said that if anyone found out what he was, they would take him away from her.

 

When mommy started coughing all the time, Jay knew that what they had talked about, was coming soon. He always knew that one day he was going to have to leave the forest and the mountains, and follow mummy to the Capital, where she was born.  
‘You are going to go to a school, where children like you learn to read and write, and when you are old enough, you will find a nice man, who will love you and take good care of you’ mommy liked to say.  
Jay knew that he was special. He wasn’t a boy, but he wasn’t a girl, either; he was a fertile. Fertiles were rare and everyone liked them, because whether they married men or women, they only ever had sons.  
Mommy took her only good dress and cut it up to make a lovely pair of trousers and a shirt for Jay. She wouldn’t let him wear it just yet, and packed it along other things, that they were taking for the journey.  
They walked for days, before they reached the outskirts of what Jay was certain must have been the Capital, but what mommy said was just a small town. Jay was amazed anyway, having never imagined a place so full of wonders, and listened keenly to his mommy, explaining about all the things that Jay had heard of, but never seen before – houses and streets, carts and horses. There were so many people there and Jay could not stop staring, seeing the men and other children for the first time in his life. He could only watch them from a distance, as mommy would not let him get any closer. They walked for two more weeks, keeping away from the towns and villages, and mommy would not stop coughing, moving slower every day.  
When they reached a big road, bigger than Jay had ever seen before and full of carts, carriages and horses, mommy told him that they were getting very close. Two days later, Jay saw the ocean for the first time in his life.  
‘Mommy, mommy, look!’ he was shouting excitedly, jumping up and down. He was even more impressed, when he discovered that the water tasted salty.  
Mommy smiled, wiping the sweat off her forehead and coughing up more blood into the already soaked rag, that she was carrying in her pocket.  
They slept at the beach that night, listening to the waves and seagulls, burying themselves in the soft, warm sand, and it was the most wonderful experience in the whole ten years of Jay’s life. When the morning came, mommy washed him properly in the ocean water, and then finally let him wear his trousers for the first time. They finished what was left of the bread and dried meat, that they had brought for the journey, along with the berries and roots, that they had collected on their way.  
‘It is time to say goodbye’ whispered mommy softly, putting her arms around him.  
They hugged and cried for a long time. Jay knew that he would never see his mommy again in this life, but that they will see each other in heaven, like mommy promised.  
‘You are my little miracle and I love you most in the world’ mommy said. ‘Go now, and I will be watching over you from the sky.’

 

Jay did not turn around, because he promised his dearest mummy that he would not watch, as she walked into the ocean to meet with God. His face was soaked in tears when he reached the big road. He did not want to go to school anymore; all he wanted to do was to go back home and be with his mommy, watching her cooking rabbit stew over the fire and singing him his favourite song.  
A big, shiny carriage stopped a few feet in front of him and a man jumped out of it, walking towards Jay. He was the first man that Jay had ever seen from up close, and he seemed so huge and terrifying, that Jay stopped crying instantly, paralysed with fear.  
‘What’s your name?’ the man asked.  
When Jay didn’t answer, he kneeled in the dirt in front of him, so that their faces were on the same level.  
‘Could you tell me how to get to school, sir?’ asked Jay politely, like mommy had taught him to.  
The man laughed, revealing his white, healthy teeth. Jay had never met anyone who had all of their teeth before, except for himself.  
‘Which school are you trying to get to, little one? There are about fifty in the Capital.’  
Jay furrowed his brows in concentration, before remembering.  
‘Mommy called it the Academy...’ he said uncertainly.  
The man was now looking at him differently, as if he were trying to understand something. Jay took a step back, wondering whether he did something wrong and the man was now unhappy with him. The moment his little body moved, the man’s hand was wrapped firmly around Jay’s upper arm.  
‘You are not a fertile, are you, boy?’ he asked, looking Jay in the eye with a very strange expression on his face.  
Jay was trying desperately to free his arm from the man’s grip, suddenly feeling very afraid.  
‘Mommy, mommy!’ he was screaming, starting to cry again.  
The scary man grabbed him in half and carried him to the carriage, before Jay realised what was happening. The man knocked on the wall above his head and the carriage moved; the trees outside were running away and everything was shaking. Jay had never been so terrified in his life.  
The man was now cleaning Jay’s face with something soft and talking to him in a soothing voice. Jay only now realised that he was sitting on the man’s lap, and that the man had his arms wrapped tightly around him.  
‘Can you read and write?’ asked the man, and Jay turned his head; mommy had taught him how to spell his name, and few other letters that she’d remembered, but that was it.  
The man laughed.  
‘All the other fertiles at the Academy can read and write, and they are all going to make fun of you. But don’t worry – I will have you learn, and then we are going to take you to school.’  
Jay did not know what to think of it. Maybe he should just listen to what mommy had said, but what if mommy didn't know that other children were going to laugh at him?  
When he tried to explain it to the scary man, he just ignored him.  
‘You will call me your uncle from now on, understand?’ he told Jay firmly. ‘My wife will give you a good meal, when we get home’ he added more kindly.  
They were now driving past the buildings so tall, that they must be reaching the sky. The carriage was shaking even more, and Jay was surrounded by too many smells and noises, making him feel sick and dizzy. Before long, the carriage stopped, and the man who wanted Jay to call him uncle, was urging him to get out. They walked through the largest pair of doors Jay could ever dream of, and on the other side a fat, stern looking woman was waiting, holding a baby girl in her arms.  
The doors were closed shut and locked behind Jay.

 

Looking back, Jay couldn’t tell how he had managed to survive all those years at uncle’s house. The first months were a blur, and he only had some fragmented memories of Greta, uncle’s wife, shouting at him and calling him stupid for not knowing how to use a chamber pot, how to eat with a knife and fork, how to put his shoes on... The list was endless. He remembered that on his first day, uncle showed him to a huge, ornamented place that Jay was sure must have been one of the churches, that his mommy had told him about, but which turned out to be his bedroom. He later discovered that one of the pictures on the wall wasn’t in fact a picture – it was a mirror, and for the first time in his life, Jay could see himself. When he turned his head to the side and covered one of his eyes with his hand, he could see his dear mommy’s face – her blond hair and green eye, her beautiful lips and a small, nicely shaped nose. He would stand in front of the mirror for hours at the time and talk to mommy in his head, knowing that she was watching him from heaven. When Greta cut Jay’s hair just below the ears and burned his lovely outfit that mommy had made for him, when the baby would not stop crying, and when he could not learn how to cook the porridge properly, no matter how hard he tried, mommy would call him her little miracle, tell him how much she loved him and promise that a good, kind man was going to come for him one day, and love him as much as she did.  
His uncle keep his word and took care of Jay’s education.  
‘You will no longer be a wildling, little one’ he said kindly one day, showing him into the magnificent room, full of books. A strange, old man was sitting at the end of the long table, and uncle introduced him as Jay’s personal tutor. The man had a kind smile and piercing, blue eyes, that were looking at Jay with interest.  
The lessons that Jay received three times a week in his uncle’s office since then, were his favourite time by far. He liked his teacher very much, and when the kind old man told him how lucky he was to receive one to one tutelage, rather than having to be send to the Academy, where young fertiles’ heads were filled with silly, modern ideas, he believed him without question. Jay impressed his teacher with how quickly he’d learned to read and write, and before long, the two of them were spending many enjoyable hours, poring over interesting books together, learning about geography, history, science and mathematics, playing the piano, drawing and painting. Jay also had lessons on biology and childcare, preparing him for what his teacher described as the noblest calling in a fertile’s life – the motherhood. And what books didn’t cover, Greta was keen to provide her insight on to the most gruesome detail, scarring Jay for life with vivid descriptions of her long, painful labour and difficulties with breastfeeding. Jay was still overjoyed when he finally started menstruating after his eleventh birthday. His body was becoming ready for carrying strong, healthy sons, while his mind was expanding to provide them with the upbringing, that would put Jay’s children at a strong advantage against women-born boys, his teacher said.  
Uncle was taking great interest in his education and was very kind to Jay. When he wasn’t travelling, which wasn’t happening that often, he would ask Greta to dress Jay nicely, and he would put a golden scarf around Jay’s neck and gold rings on his fingers, so that everyone would know that his precious ward was a fertile. Uncle would take Jay to a fair or to the beach, buy him ice-cream and soda and let him have a round on the carousel.  
As much as Jay enjoyed his uncle’s attention, it always made him feel guilty, because he knew all too well that eventually uncle was going to go away on one of his business travels, and Jay would be left at Greta’s mercy.  
Jay now knew that uncle had only married Greta for her large dowry and did not care about her at all – Greta’s unattractive face, covered in bruises more often than not, was a clear evidence of uncle’s feelings towards his wife. Since Jay had joined the family, Greta had given birth to three more daughters. Uncle’s displeasure and disappointment could not be greater, and he started investing even more into Jay’s upbringing, bringing him more books and presents from his travels. Greta wasn’t smart, but she wasn’t blind, either. She knew that her husband was raising Jay to be his heir in absence of a natural son, or at least a profitable wife for one of his rich acquaintances, who could afford the asking price. Either way, Jay was far more precious than Greta and all of her daughters put together, and her anger and resentment grew only stronger with every passing day.  
‘You ugly, smelly piece of scum! Son of a whore! No one will want you!’ she would start shouting as soon as uncle’s carriage drove off.  
In his naivety, Jay had disclosed the details of his background to Greta, hoping to form a kinship with her. Instead, she used it against him. He should have known better, he thought sadly, remembering the young girl that his mother had to put out of her misery that day in the forest.  
When uncle wasn’t home, Jay was the one making sure that they all had a hot dinner to eat, and that the girls were wearing clean clothes. He would spend his time outside of lessons scrubbing the floors, washing dirty diapers and looking after the children. Despite being relatively wealthy, uncle did not consider having house servants a necessity, expecting his wife to take care of everything. But when uncle wasn’t home, Greta did not even pretend that she cared whether the house was tidy, and her children fed.  
Jay knew that uncle believed that Jay was getting the royal treatment also in his absence, and that it would only take Jay’s one word to put Greta in her place. Yet, he could not force himself to say anything. Greta’s life was already miserable enough, and as kind as uncle was to him, Jay knew that at the end of a day, he was nothing more than just another financial investment to the wealthy man.  
When Jay was around twelve, his uncle declared him civilised enough to be introduced to the society. Since then, Jay was attending garden parties and wine dinners, where young fertiles were meeting rich men, who one day may show interest in marrying them. Uncle introduced him to his round-faced, balding friends as his orphan nephew, and they all seemed to like Jay very much, giving him candies and flowers, and calling him adorable. Jay would have believed them, if only he did not see that all the other teenage fertiles were getting similar attention, whether they were fat and pig-faced, spotty, greasy-haired or plain ugly. He knew that some of them, the lucky ones, had already had several offers made on their hands, and Jay envied them greatly, as no one ever expressed any interest in him whatsoever.  
Over the years, uncle had multiplied the fortune that Greta had brought in her dowry. Uncle used to be the one of the most renown goldsmiths in the Capital, but rather than still making jewellery, he now specialised in precious metal and gemstone trading. Capital people loved to decorate themselves with numerous large ornaments, straining their necks and stretching their ears painfully, and both men and women would emit a constant clinkering noise when moving about, made by their silver and platinum jewellery. Uncle was forever travelling to remote locations, signing contracts with diamond miners and pearl fishers, and looking for best sources of gold, traditionally only worn by the fertiles, but always in high demand amongst the richest of men, who liked to shower their precious wives and fiancés with expensive gifts. When uncle was at home, fancy looking, wealthy men would come to his office to discuss business matters, and more than once Jay accidentally walked in on some important meeting, blushing with embarrassment and muttering his apologies.  
As much as uncle enjoyed showing off with his wealth to strangers, he did not like to spend his money on his family at all. Jay’s wardrobe was full of smart clothes and his jewellery box was overspilling with gold rings and necklaces, but the girls had to wear thin, simple dresses, and uncle did not even think it necessary to buy them shoes. Greta’s daughters received none of the attention, that Jay was getting, and their father seemed utterly uninterested in their future, openly admitting to his wife that he had no intention of providing them with anything above the most basic of dowries. Greta was despairing, and to some extent, so was Jay.  
The four little girls seemed to be the only people in the house, who liked Jay just for himself. Their plain little faces would lit up whenever he leaned over their cots, and they would outstretch their arms, asking for cuddles. The oldest two were now big enough to understand their mother’s resentment, but when Greta wasn’t looking, they would still sneak out of their beds at night and demanded that Jay read them a story. Jay had loved them when they were babies, and he still loved them now, even after the girls started joining their mother in the name calling. They were neither smart, nor pretty, and he worried about their future greatly.  
The youngest girl was Jay’s favourite, and he was virtually bringing her up by himself, as her mother, who had already shown little interest in her previous two female babies, chose to reject her youngest daughter entirely. The little girl, despite being two already, still had not been named by any of her parents. Jay called her Rosie, when he sang her the lullabies, that his mommy used to sing to him. She was a sickly baby, who suffered from colic and kept everyone awake at night with her crying. Jay would give her fennel tea and put a hot water bottle on her tummy, and then she would calm down and fall asleep in Jay’s bed, sucking her thumb.  
Jay often wondered what was going to become of him in future. If uncle had no sons, Jay would most likely have to remain in his house for many years to come. He would be expected to marry some rich woman like Greta, take over uncle’s business, provide him with grandsons and take care of him in his old age. If uncle had a heir of his own, however, Jay would be married off to whoever offered the highest price, rewarding his uncle with a nice sum of money, that would make up for even the richest woman’s dowry tenfold.  
Every night, Jay was praying that Greta’s next baby was either a boy or a fertile. He knew that his chances for happiness were scarce at best, as he would have no say as to whom he was to marry, but it was still better than nothing. Unless... unless Greta was right, and no one was ever going to want him. He was just a whore’s son after all, with no connections and no formal education. Sadly, he’d grown up to be anything but a miracle, that his mommy had perceived him to be.

 

Just before Jay’s eighteenth birthday, the impossible happened and Greta gave birth to a boy. Immediately, the whole house was turned on its roof, and from there on everything was revolving around the baby. Greta would not leave her son’s side even for a minute, guarding him so zealously, that Jay would hardly even have a chance to look at him. The eldest girl was confused and upset, as her mother stopped caring about her completely all of a sudden, and she would demand constant comfort and reassurance, throwing angry tantrums when Jay did not have time for her. In the meantime, the youngest girl, who had not been developing very well so far, was finally starting to walk, pulling objects and furniture on top of herself all the time. Between Greta, the baby and the rest of the children, Jay’s hands were, to put it mildly, rather full.  
When uncle came back home and Greta presented him with his heir, rather than celebrate, he took one look at the infant and lifted his brows.  
‘Why is he so small?’ he asked his wife accusingly. ‘I guess he will have to do’ he added, walking straight past Greta and the baby.  
Later that day, uncle called Jay to his office.  
‘Bad luck’ he announced, patting the seat next to him for Jay to sit on. ‘I was hoping to be able to send her away.’  
Jay was keeping his eyes down, feeling uncomfortable. He knew what his uncle was talking about – uncle’s tenth wedding anniversary was approaching, and if Greta’s baby were girl, by law he would have the right to send her back to her parents for failing to produce an heir.  
‘Inbred bunch of bigots, all of them’ uncle was muttering angrily. ‘No wonder they all look like they belong in a pigsty.’  
Jay wasn’t sure if uncle was talking about his wife’s relatives, or his own children, and to be truthful, he did not want to know.  
‘On a different matter’ said his uncle slowly, turning to Jay with a bitter smile ‘it appears that you are in a need of a husband, little one. Would you like me to advertise?’  
In the last two years, Jay had been attending hardly any parties, and his education was now focusing mostly on the matters related to his uncle’s profession, and less on preparations for his future motherhood. He knew that until his last child was born, uncle had lost hope for ever having a son of his own, and was grooming Jay into becoming his heir, even planning to start taking Jay with him on his business trips. But now everything changed, and Jay could not be any happier.  
All the other fertiles, that Jay ever met were now either married or engaged, and Greta loved to gossip about the numerous offers and enormous prices, that the handsomest ones had managed to fetch, while openly humiliating Jay about his complete lack of marriage proposals. But now, with uncle advertising, Jay’s chances were better than ever – no fertile’s marriage advertisement went unnoticed, and even those who were crippled, disfigured or divorced, generally managed to find a husband easily.  
Jay nodded enthusiastically in response to his uncle’s question, smiling broadly and his eyes sparkling. Uncle looked at him for a long time, and there was something odd about the way that his gaze trailed across the features of Jay’s face, then down onto his chest and legs. Jay started becoming aware of how close to each other they were sitting, feeling more uncomfortable with every long passing minute.

 

Two years later, Jay was forced to look the ugly truth in the eye – Greta was right and no one was ever going to want to marry him. He had long stopped asking uncle whether anyone had shown any interest in his advertisement, too embarrassed and crestfallen to face another disappointment.  
His mommy’s face was becoming harder to see in the mirror. Jay could no longer recognise her beautiful features in himself; not since his jaw had grown stronger and sharp, and his eyebrows darkened, becoming well defined. His skin wasn’t smooth like hers had been, and Jay now had to shave regularly, somehow always managing to cut himself by the ear. His body was now different, too; he was as tall as uncle, his arms were broad and strong from carrying the children and water for the laundry, and even his legs showed some musculature from constantly running up and down the stairs. Was that what a fertile was supposed to look like? Jay had no idea. The men at the parties used to call him beautiful, but then none of them ever wanted him. It had been so long, since he had last worn gold jewellery and left his uncle’s house to be appraised on his appearance.  
‘Spinster’ Greta would call him, rocking her wailing son in her arms. ‘Pathetic, unwanted spinster son of a whore.’  
Greta’s boy cried even more than Jay’s little Rosie, and he still struggled to walk when unsupported. Greta naturally though that he was perfect.  
Uncle was doing his best to cheer Jay up, telling him not to lose hope. He still liked to spend a lot of time with Jay, and did not seem discouraged by his failure to attract any potential buyers.  
‘There is someone for everyone’ he would say, looking at Jay in that odd way again.  
Maybe uncle knew what was wrong with him, but was too kind to mention anything, thought Jay. Was there a camp for rejected fertiles, that Jay could to be sent to? He was going to be twenty next month. If he were a woman, he would be living in one already.

 

Before uncle left for his next long business trip, he had warned the family not to leave the house, unless absolutely necessary. There was a plague raging in all of the Southern shires for months, and it was slowly beginning to reach the Capital. It had already killed many of the children, the frail and elderly.  
Jay had never been allowed to leave the house by himself anyway, but hardly a day went by when Greta did not visit her sisters, or went to the market in search for a fresh gossip. Eventually, she could resist no longer and sneaked out, taking her baby son with her, tied on her back. When she came back home, she brought the plague with her.  
Jay’s little Rosie was the first one to fall ill. She died in his arms three days later, and Jay could not stop crying for hours. By the time of Rosie’s death, all of her sisters were already burning in fever, vomiting violently even if Jay gave them just water. Jay and Greta were also ill themselves, but being adults, the plague did not affect them as badly. The two eldest sisters managed to survive, but the second youngest passed away in her sleep. Her mother hardly even noticed her death, because on the morning when Jay woke up on the floor next to the girl’s bed to find her cold and blue-lipped, Greta discovered the all-familiar rash on her precious son’s little body. Already failing to thrive, the baby boy stood no chance against the plague. He died barely a day later, and Greta’s wailing was filling the walls of the house for days.  
The girls’ bodies were taken away by the undertakers to be laid to rest in one of the mass graves, with hundreds of other young victims, that the plague had claimed in the Capital, but Greta refused to part with her son’s body, still holding him in her arms and talking to him soothingly. Eventually, days later, when the baby’s little belly started swelling and his skin turned black in the summer heat, she agreed to have him buried in the garden. Jay dug a deep hole in the corner of the lawn, while the two eldest girls, still pale and wobbly on their feet, collected flowers and pretty stones to put on their brother’s grave.  
Greta took to her bed, refusing to eat or drink anything that wasn’t beer. Jay was so concerned about her, that he decided to send for her family, hoping that they would be able to comfort her, while he couldn’t. Greta’s brother arrived at their doorstep a day later, stepping out of the expensive carriage and filling the hall with a scent of his strong perfume. Jay had met him before, and never liked him.  
‘He murdered him, the whore’s son killed my baby!’ wailed Greta, throwing herself into her brother’s waiting arms.  
Jay stepped out of her bedroom quietly, but not before meeting the man’s cold, hard gaze, full of hatred.  
Greta’s brother came back the next day and the day after, and him and Greta spent a great deal of time, talking excitedly in the corner of the drawing room, looking over their arm anxiously, as if afraid that Jay may try to eavesdrop on them.  
‘Ugly piece of scum, spinster son of a whore!’ hissed Greta angrily, wherever Jay came near her. ‘Are you happy now, baby killer? You won, you are an heir now!’  
Jay collected the dirty dishes, piled up on the side table. He noticed with relief that at least Greta ate some of her breakfast.  
He walked back to the kitchen, where, to his surprise, he bumped into Greta’s brother.  
‘Get out of the way’ the man ordered angrily, brushing against him roughly in the doorway.  
Jay was exhausted. The girls had soiled their beds again and he hadn’t even have time to eat his own breakfast this morning. There was porridge, still warm on the stove, and some tea, left in the jug.  
He barely had time to finish his meal, when he heard one of the girls crying in the nursery upstairs. By the time he had checked on her, finished hanging the laundry and done the washing up, he was feeling extremely sleepy.  
He was going to sit down just for five minutes, no more than that.  
Jay’s head hit the table with a heavy thud, as everything around him went black.

 

When Jay woke up, he was in bed that wasn’t his own. A black-haired young man with olive skin and slanted eyes was sitting on the edge of the mattress, staring at him, and another one, dark-skinned, big-lipped and woolly-haired, was curled up at Jay’s feet. They saw that Jay was awake and smiled at him broadly.  
More young men were coming from all corners of the big room, in which Jay found himself being. There were ten of them altogether, and they all seemed to want to look at Jay, touch his face and hair. Jay realised that he was the only blond one with fair skin, and all the men must have come from afar, clearly not used to seeing a white person. As he was soon to learn, also none of them were able to speak the Main language.  
It didn’t take Jay long to realise where he was. One of his companions wore a thin, cheap golden pedant on a piece of string over his neck, the other three had fake-looking gold rings in their ears and noses. They weren’t men at all – they were fertiles.  
His teacher had told him about the human hunters, who bought young fertiles from all over the world and trafficked them to the Capital, selling them like slaves to men who were desperate for wives who would give them sons, but not rich enough to obtain them in the traditional way. While the practice was frowned upon amongst the civilised, educated citizens of the Capital, out in the country, amongst the wilder tribes, it thrived. His teacher had often told Jay how lucky he was, that he had been taken in by uncle, rather than falling prey to the human hunters. Apparently, Jay’s luck was no longer.  
Greta’s brother must have thought that by getting rid of Jay, he was protecting his sister somehow – little did he know that uncle already had other plans for her, and now, that his son was dead, nothing was stopping him from sending Greta away any longer. What was his uncle going to do, after coming back home and finding Jay missing? Maybe Greta was going to tell her husband that Jay had died of the plague, like her children? Jay thought of the remaining two girls, wondering what was going to happen to them.  
The fertiles were friendly, and they all seemed to be familiar with each other as well their surroundings, showing Jay around the room, and where the chamber pots and buckets for soaking their pads were kept in a large closet at the back. There were only six beds in the room, but all the other fertiles seemed happy to share, letting Jay have his own. The room was large and clean, and the bedding fresh. There were bars in the windows and heavy locks on the door, but they had been given drinking water and bread, provided on the table in the corner. Jay knew that the human hunters would not allow any harm to come to their precious cargo, wanting to get a good price for them.  
Suddenly, the locks on the door jiggled and a man entered, pushing a food trolley in front of him. All of the fertiles jumped excitedly to their feet, getting their plates out from the drawers of their bed stands. The door stood wide open, but none of the fertiles were trying to escape. Jay wondered vaguely whether any of them had any inkling of what was to happen to them, or whether perhaps they had already accepted their fate. Most of the fertiles looked undernourished, some had scars and pox marks on their faces, or bowed legs and deformed backs. Jay’s tutor had told him that there were places in the world where fertiles were considered an abnormality and treated like slaves, sold for peanuts to whoever would have them. In those countries, the men preferred to just marry several women at once, eventually getting as many sons as they needed, while simply killing all the excessive daughters at birth.  
‘Hey, you, sleeping beauty!’ shouted the guard, waiving at Jay. ‘Come and have your share. You no use to us starved to death.’  
Jay found a plate in a drawer of his own night stand. He stood up hesitantly and approached the cart, still feeling a bit dizzy from whatever Greta’s brother had put in the porridge. All the overseas fertiles moved to the sides, making room for him and smiling shyly, as if he were someone important in their eyes, who deserved special treatment.  
Jay decided that it was worth risking it, and looked at the skinny, redheaded man, who seemed to be fully absorbed in dispensing the meals.  
‘My uncle will pay a lot of money for me’ he said firmly. ‘Much more than what you bought me for from my aunt’s brother. Uncle should be coming back to the Capital shortly; just wait, and he will reward you handsomely for returning me to him.’  
‘We don’t care who pays, duck, as long as we is paid’ answered the redhead stoically. ‘And we will get paid for you, no doubt about that. Have some chicken. You should like it, my wife is an excellent cook.’  
Jay tried again when another guard brought them supper and then took them outside one by one to let them use the latrine, and then the following morning, when they were all fed and taken to the outhouse again. After breakfast, five of the guards led all of the fertiles out into a narrow corridor, and then outdoors into a small garden, surrounded by the walls that were too high to jump over. The foreign fertiles seemed happy to just stretch their legs, some of them playing tag, others wrestling each other for fun and racing around the enclosing, but Jay kept trying to engage human hunters in a conversation, convincing them to contact his uncle. Unfortunately, to no avail.  
For the first time in his life, Jay was surrounded by people of his own age and gender. Maybe the fertiles were being held captive and they did not know their future, but that did not stop them from having fun. The overseas fertiles were still treating Jay like some kind of exotic attraction, but invited him to join in the games of pebbles, that they had collected in the garden, and now rolled on the bedroom floor, aiming for the big hole in the wooden panel in the corner, while avoiding obstacles made from carefully arranged socks and pillows. It was a bit like playing golf, and even without speaking the same language, everyone was able to understand the rules. Jay’s cellmates could get a bit rowdy sometimes, and they started fights easily, especially when they were on their periods. Their guards had to intervene sometimes and separate the foreign fertiles, rolling on the floor and bleeding from their cracked lips and broken noses, dark limbs flying in all directions.  
After three weeks of being a prisoner, Jay was beginning to lose hope. What was the point anyway, he thought bitterly. Maybe they were going to sell him to some wild countryman, who was going to rape and impregnate him, but how was that any different to marrying one of uncle’s bald, old friends, if one even wanted Jay to begin with? And after Greta’s son’s death, even that option was no longer available to him. All that was awaiting him home were two empty beds, where the youngest girls used to sleep, heaps of laundry, and dirty dishes to wash. No matter where he looked, each scenario seemed equally dark.  
Maybe he should just try to run away and build a little hut at the foot of some mountain, Jay thought. Maybe he would find more baby girls that no one wanted, to be a good mother to. They would hunt and gather roots and mushrooms, nurse sparrows with broken wings back to health and keep a dog for the children to play with. They would be happy, just like him and his mommy had been. Just like Jay had never been ever since.

 

It was another two weeks, before their buyers came for them.  
They were told to wash and shave, given fresh clothes to wear and then fed well. They were then lined up outside, chained to each other in pairs and threes by their wrists and ankles, except for Jay, who wasn’t bound and was kept a few steps away from everyone else. The human hunters tied a cheap golden scarf around his neck and combed his freshly washed hair neatly, as if particularly keen to get rid of him.  
A group of men, all of them tall, grim and strong-looking, came to inspect them, walking around the bound fertiles in circles. They all had weapons at their backs and swords, attached to their belts.  
The men all spoke the same language that Jay was able to identify as one of the many dialects spoken in the South, where all the diamond and sapphire mines were. Unfortunately, Jay’s tutor had not taught him enough to now be able to understand a single word.  
The Southerners were now talking animatedly, pointing at particular fertiles, seemingly arguing over who was getting which of them. Jay couldn’t help noticing that there were only ten of the men and eleven fertiles, and that no one seemed to be pointing at him. Some of the fertiles were much older than Jay and disfigured, missing teeth and so thin, that their bones were poking through their skin, yet it was Jay that no one wanted. Ugly, stinky spinster, he heard Greta’s voice in his head, as his eyes began to prickle.  
Eventually, the men seemed to come to an agreement, and the guards approached them, ready to collect their payment. Jay’s eyes widened when he saw the amount of money exchanging hands, counted meticulously by the human hunters. It was much more than even his uncle ever had in his safe.  
The men then frogmarched their purchase to where a long, two horse wagon with a bench going through its middle was waiting, and the fertiles, still chained, were lifted two and three at the time by their strong owners and loaded onto it. The men then proceeded to cover the wagon with a thin, white canopy, that would hide the fertiles from sight and the scorching summer sun, but still enable them to breathe comfortably. The two of the Southerners then returned for Jay and gestured him into following them to a large, two-horse carriage, unfolding the steps for him, but still not touching him; bowing their heads low, before locking him inside. Jay’s spirits lifted a little bit, when he realised that he was not being left behind after all, that someone must have wanted him, too. Before he had time to even look around his surroundings, the carriage was moving and the trees on the sides of the road were running away from view, just like they had on the day when uncle had put Jay into his carriage ten years ago.

 

The house where Jay had been kept turned out to be located outside of the Capital, close to the main Southern road. They travelled for hours, but all that Jay could see were hills, forests and once or twice a small village, surrounded by fields. Some time ago, their group joined a much larger one, with more men riding horseback, but also driving carts, filled with goods that the Southern gemstone miners must had traded for in the Capital. All of the men were also armed and fierce looking, and there must have been hundreds of them, from what Jay could see through the windows of his carriage. The treasures that the Southerners had sold in the Capital must have been incredible, to require such level of protection.  
Jay’s carriage was made very comfortable for him – he was given soft cushions, bread, fruit and water. Whenever they stopped, his carriage would be parked in a shadow, away from the rest of the fertiles and everyone else, and two huge Southern men, that Jay had not seen at the human hunters’ house, would come to check on him, refilling his supplies and holding the door open to let Jay out, turning their heads away when he needed to relieve himself in the bushes. Jay could not figure out why he was getting such preferential treatment. The Southerners seemed very careful not to touch him and even avoided looking at him whenever they could, as if Jay were something unclean.  
The summer days were long, and it was late when they eventually stopped for the night. Jay was let out of his carriage and allowed to stretch his legs, before his two guardians directed him through the darkness to where a large fire was burning, and where everyone else was already resting. Once he stepped into the light, all the eyes turned towards Jay, and everyone seemed keen for a good look at him. Jay, who still had his golden scarf around his neck, wrapped it around himself more tightly, fumbling with the edge of the thin fabric in his fingers nervously.  
The meat was roasting on the fire and everyone was drinking wine. Jay was showed to sit on a blanket by himself and a bit away from other people, but he was still able to see most of the men. Many of the Southerners had big knife scars on their arms and faces, several older ones were even missing limbs, but they were all big and healthy looking, with strong, white teeth and shiny hair. Maybe it was thanks to their obviously mixed heritage – some had light complexion, but wide mouths and noses, their heads covered in tight black curls, while others had olive skin and dark, almond-shaped eyes under auburn fringes. Only then Jay noticed the other fertiles, no longer bound, waving at him and smiling from behind their owner’s backs. One of them seemed to try to stand up and come to Jay, but his owner grabbed him roughly by the arm, pulling him back to the grass. The fertile’s face fell, but then his man handed him a slice of freshly roasted pheasant, and he cheered up immediately. There was enough food for everyone, and Jay was given a generous amount, that was too much for him to be able to finish.  
The wine was disappearing quickly, and soon enough the men who bought the fertiles, started to grope and pinch them, trying to put their hands under their clothes. Other men around the fire were watching and laughing, shouting something encouragingly. The fertiles were fighting their owners, but it did not seem like they were trying very hard, though Jay, remembering how they had wrestled ferociously on the bedroom floor and punched each other, when arguing over the game of pebbles. One of the owners, the one with thick beard and long, red hair, seemed to lose his patience eventually, and he threw his screaming fertile over his arm, carrying him off into the forest. The rest of the owners followed his example shortly.  
They did not go very far, and Jay was still able to hear the fertile’s desperate screams and the men’s laughter. The atmosphere around the fire was now positively euphoric, and all the remaining drunken men were talking and laughing loudly, making obscene gestures with their hands, while emitting rude noises. The crying coming from the forest only seemed to encourage them more, while all that Jay wanted to do was to cover his ears with his hands and run away, wishing that there was something that he could do to save the fertiles from being raped.  
Their screams now seemed more resigned and less intense, and to Jay’s horror, one of them started sounding a lot like the noises that Greta was making, when uncle visited her in her bedroom at night. All the men around the fire went quiet, listening intensely and covering their mouths with their large hands, as if trying not to laugh. The fertile making the noises was now shouting something in his language with urgency, and Jay thought that he could recognise the voice of the big, black one, who was probably the eldest of them all. The noises went on and on, and the men around the fire started cheering and whistling, patting each other on the arms, and pouring more wine.  
The two huge men, who were guarding Jay’s carriage, stood up, gesturing Jay to do the same. He swallowed hard and went after them into the darkness, but this time no one was whistling or cheering; the Southerners only followed Jay with their eyes, as he left.  
To his surprise, his guardians simply locked him back in the carriage, where the seats were already folded down, making a nice bed, covered with fresh blankets and pillows.  
Jay curled up in a ball, feeling frightened and lonely. He could still hear the noises, that the fertiles and their owners were making, although they were much fainter now. Surely, some of the other men by the fire must have been single, too. Surely, at least one of them must have wanted to carry him into the forest, thought Jay desperately. What was wrong with him, why not even one of them wanted to take him?  
Jay hated himself for thinking that way; hated himself for wishing it. He just couldn’t stand being the person that he was anymore, he thought, heartbroken and crying himself to sleep.

 

When the morning came, all of the fertiles were wearing thick, heavy gold bangles on their wrists, and expensive decorative chains around their necks. They were glaring at their owners, seemingly angry and resentful, but they were also appreciating their jewellery in the morning light, their eyes sparkling. The olive-skinned fertile with slanted eyes started screaming and kicking when his owner pinned him to the ground by the wrists and wanted to kiss him, but by the time their lips parted, the fertile was laughing, although he still smacked his man square on the face, when his hands were released.  
All the other fertiles were looking at Jay with pity, avoiding his eyes.

 

After several days on the road, none of the fertiles were using the wagon anymore – three of them were sitting on horses’ backs behind their men, with their arms wrapped around their waists, while the bigger, heavier ones were given their own horses to ride. Jay could see them speeding past his carriage window, smiling and waving, their bangles jingling, and the fertiles looked like they were enjoying themselves. At night, he could hear them and their men through the thin, wooden walls of his carriage, and the overseas fertiles were no longer screaming in terror.  
The road was now narrow and more bumpy; the view from Jay’s carriage window showed rivers and mountains, and every time he looked, he was reminded of the place, where he was born in a little hut. At first, he was too scared and upset to enjoy the vastness of the open space, that he had missed so much, when trapped at uncle’s house, but now he was waking up every morning, looking forward to when his carriage door was opened, breathing in the air that did not smell like smoke and faeces, drinking fresh, clean water with no metallic aftertaste and walking on the soft, moist grass, instead of the dirty, cobbled streets.

 

After ten days of travel, they reached a small village. Children and fertiles were running out of the simple, but well maintained houses, and few of the men from their group jumped off their horses to catch their laughing wives and sons into their arms. There was not a single woman or girl in sight, and Jay realised that the men belonged to the ruthless, Southern tribe that his tutor had told him about, wealthy enough to afford to only ever marry fertiles, even if they had to bring them from afar.  
They moved from one village to the other, and in every one of them more men were welcomed by their sons and fertile wives, staying behind and leaving the group. The overseas fertiles were also leaving one by one, following their owners into their new homes, and waving Jay goodbye.  
By the time they arrived at the gates of some town, there were only about fifty men left, and it was already getting dark. Jay wiped his sweaty hands on the legs of his trousers, pushing himself deeper into his seat, so that he would not be seen from the outside. He still had no idea what the Southerner’s plans for him were. He went through every possibility in his head already, ranging from being resold to some even more remote shire, to give his buyers a profit, or being tied to a stone table and sacrificed in some barbaric religious ritual, that he had never heard of. He was not being treated like something valuable for no reason, he knew that much.  
His carriage was stopped in what appeared to be the centre of the town, and his two intimidating guardians pointed him to the open doors of a house almost as big as his uncle’s, where an older couple, looking to be in their sixties, was already waiting. Jay walked towards them, and when he was so close, that he could see their wrinkles, he tripped on the doorstep and almost fell, but none of them moved to catch him.  
The couple guided Jay into a large hall and led him to a dining room, where a long table was already set for three. The fertile disappeared, but the man gestured Jay to take a seat, and Jay perched himself anxiously on the edge of one of the heavy, polished mahogany chairs with intricately curved back and legs, matching the table. The man was saying something in his language, speaking very fast and making chaotic gestures with his hands, and Jay stood up quickly, certain that he had done something wrong. The man was now speaking in a raised voice, pointing between the chair where Jay was previously sat, and the top of the table, where the bigger, throne-like and even more decorated chair was placed, clearly intended for the head of the family. Jay moved quickly to stand by it – perhaps the man expected him to wait on him, while he ate? Was Jay purchased to be a servant to the rich couple? Was that all, that he was good for? Jay’s heart sank and he dropped his eyes in yet another disappointment, but he had no time to reflect on his discovery, as the man kept trying to communicate with him, red on the face and looking very frustrated.  
His wife, wearing a kitchen apron, came rushing to the room, alarmed by his husband’s raised voice. He took one look at Jay, standing with his head held low and close to tears, and a torrent of abuse directed at his husband erupted from the fertile’s mouth, while he swept at his husband’s head with a tea towel angrily. The man was muttering something in defence, cowering. The fertile ignored him completely, turning to Jay with a gentle smile, and he pulled back the chair on which Jay had initially sat, gesturing him to take it again. The fertile then rearranged the table quickly, moving his husband’s plate away from the throne-like chair at the top, and instead shoving the man into one of the ordinary chairs on the side.  
The fertile left the room again, but returned quickly with a bowl of soup, followed by a second course and dessert. It seemed like the middle-aged Southerners were determined to show Jay that he was welcome, treating him to a big meal after a long journey. Jay ate, observing the couple sitting opposite him discreetly. The wife was shorter and stout, grey-haired and dark-skinned. The man was tall and strong-looking, despite his age, and he had wide cheekbones and large, scarred hands. They were both very modestly dressed, and even though the wife was wearing a lot of gold, something in their behaviour told Jay that they were not the masters of the big house. Maybe they were servants, too, and the real owners weren’t home?  
The fertile was much better than his husband at trying to communicate with Jay. He managed to introduce himself as Caleb, and his husband as Vincent, or at least that’s what their names sounded like in his strong accent. They both smiled at him from across the table, when Jay said his own name, and they repeated it many times, as if they liked the sound of it.  
After dinner, when Jay followed Caleb to the kitchen to help with the washing up, Vincent did some more shouting and arm-waving, but his wife just looked at him warningly and sent him upstairs. Despite being quite a bit smaller, he seemed to be good at bossing his husband around. Caleb then helped Jay to wash, heating water for his bath and rinsing Jay’s hair for him, but careful not to touch him. They emptied and cleaned the bath together and wiped the kitchen floor, before Caleb guided Jay to follow him upstairs.  
He showed him to a big bedroom, with thick, expensive carpet, heavy curtains and a luxurious throw on the huge bed. Jay looked at him in confusion, and it took Caleb a while to convince Jay that this was where he was supposed to be sleeping. Caleb himself took the stairs for the attic, where the servants quarters were usually placed in wealthy mansions, and where Jay would personally feel much more comfortable sleeping.  
He slipped into the bed, his head full of questions that no one was going to answer.

 

It was the middle of the night, when Jay was awoken by a familiar sound. At first, he thought that he was dreaming, like he often did, missing his little Rosie and hearing her cry in his sleep, but this time, his eyes were wide open.  
There was definitely a sound of a baby crying, coming from the room right above his bedroom. It wasn’t very loud and it sounded somehow muffled, which explained why Caleb and Vincent, probably sleeping a bit sounder than anxious, worried Jay, might not have heard it.  
Putting aside a question of how a baby would end up in a possession of the mature couple, Jay lit a candle and sneaked upstairs, following the baby’s distressed sounds and finding the right door easily. He really had no idea how Caleb and Vincent could just sleep right through it – the baby’s weak, desperate crying was going straight through Jay’s heart. Perhaps the baby was a girl, and the Southerners simply didn’t care.  
Only then Jay remembered that he was now in a place, where no little girls, and even no little fertiles, were ever born.  
A little black-haired boy was lying on his front in a cot, entangled in his blanket and crying desperately with his face squished against a pillow, struggling to breathe. Jay freed him from his bondage and lifted him in his arms. With his lungs full of air again, the little boy was now able to wail loudly, full of resentment and complaining about his horrible ordeal. Jay patted him on his little bum comfortingly, realising that his diaper needed changing.  
‘I know, I know... Poor little baby, what did that nasty blanket do to you, what did it do?’ Jay was saying, walking around the small nursery with the little boy in his arms.  
The noise that the baby was now making was loud enough to raise Caleb from his sleep, and he came rushing, followed by his husband, both looking confused and dishevelled.  
Jay stared at them, suddenly overcome with terror. All of the Southerners seemed to be afraid of touching him, and now Jay was holding one of their precious sons in his arms. They were going to be very, very angry.  
Caleb and Vincent exchanged knowing looks, before turning back to Jay, both nodding in approval. The little boy noticed the familiar faces and outstretched his hands to the pair of servants, so Jay handed him to Caleb, who then went about changing his full diaper. The baby was now cooing happily, looking at Jay with his big, black eyes. He was complaining again, when Caleb put him back in his cot, but when Jay started stroking his plump, soft cheek with his thumb, the baby boy calmed down and closed his long-lashed eyelids.

 

Jay now knew what he had been purchased for. The other two servants eventually gave up trying to stop him from helping around the house, but seemed to want him to focus on looking after baby Hugo.  
‘Mama?’ Jay asked the morning after he had discovered the existence of the baby, pointing at Hugo, sitting on his lap.  
Caleb was shaking his head sadly, making a cross on his chest.  
‘Papa?’ asked Jay next, and Caleb did his best to answer with his hands and mimicking, but apparently the subject was too complex to explain without words.  
‘Mama’ said Caleb with firm finality, pointing at Jay, and putting an end to their unsuccessful conversation.  
That same morning, Jay found a broken gold earring, wedged between the wooden shelves of the wardrobe in his bedroom, and realised that another fertile must have lived there before him. He must have been much taller than him, as the mirror on the wall only showed the top half of Jay’s face.  
There were two pairs of mysterious doors in Jay’s bedroom. One of the doors was locked, but the other opened, revealing a nursery.  
This was where baby Hugo must have slept, when his mother had still been alive, realised Jay. And now Jay was sleeping in his bed, expected to take over the upbringing of his son.  
Later that day, Caleb showed Jay the family portraits in the drawing room, and Jay looked at them for a long time, holding little Hugo in his arms. A modern family portrait of a brown-haired mature couple with a young son with his father’s cleft chin, sitting on his mother’s knees, old pictures of the family ancestors, posing proudly in horse saddles, and faded miniatures of children with soft, blond curls, who had long grown old and died. In the corner of the wall, as if hidden from view and not belonging to the family, was a new-looking portrait of a black-haired fertile with small lips, handsome, masculine features and Hugo’s black eyes; a picture in front of which Jay spent the most time.  
Caleb agreed to relocating the baby back into his old nursery without hesitance, not even trying to hide his excitement at the prospect of undisturbed sleep at night. Personally, Jay would prefer to leave Hugo where he was and move to the attic himself, but Caleb seemed shocked at the idea. Jay suspected that his position as a nanny gave him a slightly higher status than the other two servants had, and perhaps a nicer room was one of the benefits usually coming with the job – he wouldn’t know, as uncle would have rather eaten his own shoe, than hired help for his children.

 

Hugo was such a healthy, strong looking baby, and judging by his substantial size, Jay presumed that he must be around a year old. He could not be more surprised when Caleb held up six fingers, to show that Hugo was in fact only half of that age. The little boy was already trying to stand, holding onto Jay’s hands and pulling himself up from the floor, and he would follow Jay around the house on all fours, squealing and vocalising loudly. Hugo consumed copious amounts of goat’s milk, and the minute Jay started him on solids, he was reaching with his chubby fingers for more, trying to shove boiled carrots into his little mouth by himself. He seemed to already have a very strong personality, and was quite a handful at times, especially when he wanted something, that he wasn’t allowed. When Caleb’s and Vincent’s sons-in-law and grandchildren visited, Hugo would cry and throw angry tantrums whenever Jay as much as looked at the other children, and quite often he would hit and bite the little boys, who dared to touch his nanny. Every time Jay looked at his resolute, pretty face, he was sadly reminded of how disadvantaged Greta’s children had been in inheriting their mother’s poor looks and brains, how slowly the youngest three had been developing, before succumbing to the plague.  
The front door of the big house was always left unlocked; Jay could walk out and run away any time he wanted, except that he didn’t. He was hardly a prisoner, unlike when at his uncle’s house – Caleb was always keen to take him with him, when he went out shopping, and shortly after Jay’s arrival, he even took him to the tailor’s, and ordered some more clothes for him. The poor tailor had quite a job, trying to take Jay’s measurements without touching him.  
Not that there was anything wrong with the clothes, that he had been already given. In fact, as Jay noticed, when following Caleb around town, it seemed that he was very smartly dressed in comparison to the Southerners on the streets, even though he would look rather unimpressive back in the Capital. Wherever Jay went, people were staring, but turning their eyes away respectfully under his own gaze. Having familiarised himself with his surroundings better, Jay soon realised that the house for which he had been bought, was not only big and wealthy – it was by far the largest and most imposing looking one in sight. Little Hugo’s father must have been someone very high up in the local community, which would explain why everyone seemed to treat his son’s nanny with such odd respect, as most likely, the baby boy was meant to grow up into someone important, too.  
Jay often wondered what had happened to the boy’s father, and whether he was ever going to come back to his son. Most of the men, that Jay saw on the streets of the Southern town were at least Vincent’s age, and Jay wondered whether the younger, stronger ones were travelling across the country guarding more convoys of precious gemstones, and whether the man, who’s room Jay was keeping spotless and ready, was one of them.  
The mysterious locked door in Jay’s bedroom turned out to be leading to the master bedroom in the house – Hugo’s father’s possessions were still there, and when Jay opened the wardrobe, he could still feel the faint smell of another person, lingering on the clothes. No one slept between the sheets that Jay changed every week, no one was using the dressing table, that Jay kept polishing, and the carpet did not need to be brushed every day, but Jay kept finding more excuses to enter the bedroom again.  
One day, the owner of the neighbouring bedroom was going to return, Jay kept dreaming. Hugo’s father would walk into the house, tall and handsome, with brown hair and clef chin, and unlock the door between their bedrooms. Despite of who Jay was, the man would take him for his wife, and one day, give him a son of his own. All the missing pieces of the puzzle would fall into place, and Jay would finally see what he was so desperately looking for in the eyes of the people bowing low to him on the streets – that he was never intended for just a nanny, that there had to be a different, better explanation for why he was sleeping in Hugo’s late mother’s bedroom, for the carriage and for the nice clothes – for everything.  
Those were just dreams, thought Jay bitterly, turning to Hugo and wiping the drool off his fat little chin and hands. The baby boy was teething, and constantly putting his fists into his mouth. He started calling Jay “mama” recently, and it was just melting Jay’s heart. Caleb and Vincent invited Jay to accompany them to church last Sunday, and everyone’s heads lifted, when little Hugo, supported by Jay’s arms and jumping up and down on their front bench, called the two lovely syllables loudly in a middle of the mass. Even the priest smiled, when Jay got up, rushing to the side door with an increasingly noisy baby in his arms. There were several young mothers, sitting outside and trying to calm down their own misbehaving children, and they all moved to make room for Jay on the stone bench.  
Jay was extremely confused by how big the families filling the church were. He knew that most fertiles hardly ever had more than two children, and even then they would always be at least five years apart, as it took a long time for fertiles to fall pregnant. Yet, some mothers in the church were surrounded by two or three little boys, while holding a baby one in their arms.  
First ten years of his life, Jay had spent with only his mother for company, another ten surrounded by little girls and their horrible woman mother. Now, living amongst men and fertiles, Jay struggled to understand their ways. Caleb and Vincent seemed to be very fond of him and they never laughed, even when he did something stupid, yet Jay felt that they thought him a bit odd, as if he couldn’t grasp something, that was obvious to everyone else. Jay knew that they could see what everyone else saw – that he wasn’t a proper fertile, that he would never marry, and was only ever good enough to look after someone else’s child. Even though he loved little Hugo dearly and was happy in his new home, Jay did not yet find a way to cope with the overpowering sense of shame at the failure that he’d grown up to be, and it cast a dark shadow over even the brightest moments.

 

By the time Hugo was nine months old, Jay knew quite a lot of words in Harza, the local language – he knew the names of most of the household items, and when they went shopping, he was now able to remind Caleb about the items on their list. Jay’s vocabulary was still too limited to understand most of what Caleb often wanted to talk to him about in the evenings, when Hugo and Vincent were already asleep. Caleb seemed to want to know either why Jay still did not have a husband, or if he wanted to have one at all, Jay could not be certain. Jay knew that Caleb was just being kind, but he found those questions very upsetting. Caleb soon noticed that Jay started to avoid their evening conversations, and was now looking at him with his eyes full of pity; something that Jay recognised all too well from the way the overseas fertiles’ had stared at him during their journey to the South.  
One day, the servant couple began preparations for some sort of a large celebration, which required hiring additional staff. Caleb’s and Vincent’s sons-in-law brought their friends along, and Jay recognised some familiar faces from the church stone bench. Jay was struggling to overcome his shyness, surrounded by so many confident, married fertiles, who, after casting some very puzzled looks at him initially, now seemed to be warming up to him a little. The house was scrubbed top to bottom, the garden pruned, and a great deal of collective cooking and baking was taking place in the kitchen. Jay wasn’t even trying to hide his excitement – could that mean that Hugo’s father was finally coming back home?  
Two large convoys returned to the town that week, bringing Caleb’s and Vincent’s sons back to them, and it seemed like all the men had now returned back to their homes, but Hugo’s father was not amongst them.  
After a long consideration, Jay concluded that the party was being organised for Hugo’s christening, even though he was not able to confirm his suspicions with Caleb. Every time Jay was crossing himself, pointing between the baby and the now beautifully decorated drawing room, Caleb was looking at Jay with more of that worried, almost guilty expression on his face, which Jay was finding so extremely distressing.  
Eventually, after a very busy week, by Sunday afternoon everything was ready for Hugo’s christening, and they were all freshly bathed, well-groomed and dressed in smart clothes. Caleb was wearing twice as much gold as usual, and he managed to convince Jay to put on an expensive-looking red shirt and a matching pair of trousers. Jay himself was a bit unsure about the bright colouring and excessive golden embroidery around the cuffs and collar, rather unusual amongst the simple-styled Southerners, but Caleb would not let him change into anything plainer, although he himself also appeared to be having some second thoughts about how overdressed Jay ended up looking.  
Little Hugo seemed to have similar thoughts about his own outfit, and he kept trying to take his shoes and socks off, looking very unimpressed at being forced into tight, uncomfortable clothes for the occasion.

 

Their street was crowded, when they stepped outside their front door, and everyone’s eyes were on Jay, carrying a very elegant-looking Hugo on his hip. They started walking towards the church and the crowd followed silently, keeping respectfully a few steps behind them. When they reached the church doors, Caleb took Hugo from Jay’s arms and stepped to the side, waiting for Jay to push the door handle and to walk in first. The church was brightly lit and empty, except for the priest and a strange man, dressed in red and waiting by the altar.  
‘Go to him’ whispered Caleb, but Jay could not move for a long time.  
When he finally did, Jay walked past the rows of long, wooden benches, before stopping by the front one, where they were usually sat.  
‘No’ Caleb was whispering anxiously behind his back. ‘You go to him.’  
Jay turned his head, looking into Caleb’s warm, reassuring eyes, gesturing Jay with the smallest movement of his head to join the tall, handsome man standing at the altar, looking straight at Jay – a man with brown hair and cleft chin.  
Only when Jay stood next to Hugo’s father, did the crowd start pouring into the church, but Jay was not aware of what was happening around him anymore. He would kneel down on the stone floor when the man next to him kneeled, stand up when he did the same, and cross himself in a mirror image of his movements, but it was as if he were no longer in his body, but watching himself from a distance. When the man turned to him and took his hand into his own, repeating the sentences spoken by the priest, Jay copied in turn, having no understanding of the words that he was swearing. He must have mispronounced some of them and the crowd laughed heartily, no malice in their voices, but the man dressed in red did not smile. He kept looking at Jay with a harsh, resentful expression, even when he slipped gold bangles over both of Jay’s hands, and the whole church cheered loudly.  
He hates me, though Jay, close to tears and heartbroken. He did not want to marry me; he’s angry.  
The rest of the evening was a blur. Jay had no idea how he found himself back home, sitting in the throne-like chair, with Hugo’s father at his right, and numerous unfamiliar men and fertiles filling the other seats. He thought that he could hear music coming from somewhere, but he could not be certain. Hugo’s cries reached his ears and he wanted to go to him, but the man who he was now married to grabbed Jay’s elbow in an iron-strong grip, and would not let him move an inch. Hugo’s crying was sounding more and more distant, until it died completely.

 

The music was still playing, and Jay could hear people talking and laughing downstairs. He was now in his bedroom, where Caleb had taken him some time ago, putting his clothes away and making sure that Jay was naked, when he hid under the covers of his bed. Jay was now alone in the darkness. He wondered whether it was safe yet to cry.  
There were noises coming from the room next to his, and Jay could hear somebody walking across the floor, before he heard the scraping sound on the other side of the locked door between the bedrooms. The key was inserted into the hole and the lock turned. The door was stiff, as if no one opened it in a long time, and the hinges creaked when Jay’s husband pushed it firmly from his side, before it gave way with a cracking noise.  
He brought a candle with him, that he put by Jay’s bed. Jay watched as his husband took his red shirt off, then his shoes and trousers.  
Jay knew what was about to happen – he had learned from the book, that he had back in the Capital, and Greta’s rude remarks, that she’d loved to make to embarrass and humiliate him. When his husband pulled the covers, Jay froze, still fearing that it was all too good to be true, but he was given hardly any time to think or worry. His legs were forcibly pulled apart, before Jay had a chance to open them himself.  
Having his husband lie on top of him was nothing like cuddling the babies, or wrestling with the overseas fertiles on the floor in a pretended fight – if anything, the closest thing that Jay could think of was being back in his mommy’s arms, when he was little. His husband was so much heavier, stronger and taller than him, even though he did not speak to him or kiss him like his mommy used to do. His skin was hot and covered in sweat, and he smelled like milk left for too long in the sun, like whisky and wet leather. Jay had never liked any smell so much before.  
It hurt when his husband started doing it to him, just like Jay knew it should. He gritted his teeth, trying not to tense at the foreign sensation of having something forced between the dry, tight walls of what the book called reproductive tract, where did not seem to be enough room for his husband’s male organ. Was there something wrong with Jay? He stifled a frightened whimper. His husband was kind enough not to say anything, and was now moving himself between Jay’s legs, while keeping his upper body few inches over him, supporting himself on his arms. Jay wanted to pull him in closer, but did not have the courage to put his arms around someone so superior and almost godlike in his eyes. He was trying very hard to relax his muscles, and his husband groaned with satisfaction as a sharp, stabbing pain flared between Jay’s legs, while a different, dull and throbbing one, spread inside his lower belly.  
The bed was now creaking loudly and all that Jay could do, was to pray that he was doing everything right. His husband was moving himself inside Jay, and his face was screwed in pain – Jay’s heart twisted in sympathy in his chest, and he begged in his head that he wasn’t causing him as much pain as the one that he himself was experiencing. To his great relief, his husband then started moaning loudly and collapsed on top of Jay – he was sounding like the fertiles in the forest, which had to be good.  
Jay was fighting with himself, desperate for a touch of the moist, pale skin, while worrying that the gesture would not be welcomed. He was saved by his husband pulling himself out from between Jay’s legs and causing a new kind of pain, and then rolling off him. He was out of Jay’s room and shutting the door behind himself next.  
Jay was looking into the flame of the candle left behind by his husband. He was very sore, and something wet and sticky was leaking from inside him. The tears were rolling down his cheeks, but they were the tears of happiness.

 

The following morning, Jay had to hold little Hugo in his arms for a long time, whispering how much he loved him into his ear. His son was very upset at being abandoned for the whole night, and needed lots of cuddles, before he would stop crying. Jay’s stomach hurt as bad as it did when he was on his period, and he did not need to look at his gold bangles to know that the last night had not been a dream. The thought that Hugo may have a sibling one day did something very strange to Jay – he found himself unable to breathe and on the verge of tears, and his hands would not stop shaking.  
His husband was sitting to the right of the throne-like chair, when Jay came downstairs for breakfast, holding the now smiling and chatty Hugo on his hip.  
‘Mama, mama!’ repeated the child happily, patting Jay on the face with his hands.  
Jay sat in the chair opposite, and his husband grunted.  
‘You are to sit at the top of the table. In our culture wives rule the family life, not the men.’ Jay’s husband did not meet his eyes when he spoke in fluent Main – despite his accent, Jay could understand every word.  
Jay obeyed and moved to the honoured sit. Hugo was pulling on his hair and Jay untangled a strand from his fist gently, pressing a kiss on the inside of the little palm. He wondered whether he was expected to go and help Vincent and Caleb in the kitchen.  
‘What is your name?’ he asked instead, realising that he still did not know what his husband was called.  
The man stood up so abruptly, that his chair was turned over, and he stormed out of the room, shutting the door loudly behind himself.  
Caleb walked in just as Jay was putting the chair back up, and Jay told him what had happened.  
‘Why?’ he asked Caleb in Harza, hurt and confused. ‘What I do wrong?’  
‘He is James’ said Caleb, smiling sadly, as if that offered enough explanation.  
His husband did not return, and Jay was not going to see him for the rest of the morning.

 

When Caleb saw Jay soaking his blood-stained sheets in the laundry bucket, he looked him deep in the eye.  
‘Fine?’ he asked quietly.  
‘Fine’ Jay whispered, smiling shyly.  
Caleb laughed and pulled him into a hug, kissing him on the cheek.  
‘Touch now?’ asked Jay, and Caleb nodded, smiling some more.  
They were busy cleaning all morning, removing decorations around the house, washing the floors, drying and putting away the plates and glasses. Jay was trying not to show how much he was struggling, but Caleb noticed anyway. He mixed some red powder with hot water and gave it to Jay to drink. It tasted awful, but helped with the pain, and he did not need to run to the toilet every five minutes anymore.  
The days were now getting colder, and they dressed Hugo warmly, when they took him to play in the garden in the afternoon. Jay’s son, who had been able to walk when holding his hand for some time now, chose the day after Jay’s wedding to take his first independent step.  
‘My little miracle’ Jay was repeating in awe, as the little boy fell into his arms, while Caleb and Vincent laughed and clapped. Not even ten months old, and already walking.  
Caleb’s and Vincent’s heads turned, and Jay realised that James was standing in the doorway, looking at them.  
‘He started to walk’ explained Jay, kissing and cuddling the baby now sitting on his lap.  
James stayed where he was, watching them for a long time.

 

At night, Jay’s husband came to his bed again and took him for a second time. It hurt even more than it had the night before, but Jay could not care less. When his husband moaned loudly and covered him with his own body, Jay had his arms around him, stroking his back, before he even realised what he was doing.  
‘I’m sorry’ he muttered, dropping his hands to his sides.  
James did not respond and lay unmoving on top of him, still inside Jay.  
Jay touched him carefully again, and when his husband did nothing to stop him, he started petting and kissing him, just like he did with Hugo. James moved to make himself more comfortable, with his head on Jay’s chest and his arms on the bed on both sides of Jay. Jay’s fingers were now in his short brown hair, so much thicker and stronger than his own, soft blond one.  
James moved eventually, but instead of getting up and leaving Jay’s bedroom, he took him again, slower this time, and it seemed like he enjoyed it more. He fell asleep in Jay’s arms, but Jay was too happy to be able to close his eyes for a long time.

 

The months that followed were nothing but a happy bliss in Jay’s eyes.  
Him and James now went to church together every Sunday, and sat next to each other in the front bench. His husband was very reserved towards him, but always held his hand when they walked down the streets, and didn’t seem to mind when Jay wanted to hold his hand during the mass, as well.  
Jay now knew enough Harza to be able to exchange a few words with the other mothers, when standing outside the side door of the church, with misbehaving Hugo strutting around on his fat, wobbly legs.  
‘Big for his age’ the mothers would say, pointing at Hugo.  
‘Always ask food’ Jay would reply, while the mothers laughed.  
He felt so proud, now married himself and just like them. He never talked to them for too long, though, because James did not like it.  
At home, James never said whether he enjoyed the meals that Jay cooked for him, but then also never complained about the food. He didn’t seem to care whether Jay was waiting at the front door, when he came back home from the Town Hall, but Jay was there anyway, ready to take his coat from him and to kiss him on the cheek. He never seemed to seek his company, but talked to him sometimes in the evenings, if Jay happened to be around, helping him to learn Harza language and explaining the intricacies of his culture, and Jay treasured every moment, when he could hear his husband’s low, raspy voice, speaking in Main with harsh Harza undertones. James hardly ever shouted at him and never hit him, and Jay still could not believe how fortunate he had been in his marriage, and that all his dreams came true. He knew, naturally, that his husband wasn’t happy about having to marry a fertile that no one else wanted, but James was good enough not to show it too often, and Jay was determined not to give him any reason to regret his decision.  
Jay wasn’t at all surprised to discover that he was now married to a Leader – there was something authoritative about the way that his husband moved and spoke, and he did not need to see how the other men looked up to him, to know that they all respected him greatly. In charge of the whole shire, his husband didn’t have much time to spend at home – when he wasn’t at the Town Hall, he would travel across his villages, even after the first snow fell. Jay now knew that while the shire had several diamond mines on its southern borders, the main source of wealth were the stocking, trading and transport of precious feedstock. Harza men were renowned for their strength and warfare skills, and most of the other shires preferred to outsource the logistics of their production to them, rather than risk losing their profits to the herds of robbers, that Southern roads were infested with. Every spring, large groups of Harza men left their homes and travelled in all directions, sometimes not coming back till late autumn, while their wives were left in charge of the farming and local manufacturing.  
To Jay’s delight, his husband now slept in his bed every night, and even when Jay was on his period, James would still lie with his head on Jay’s naked chest and his arms around him. It no longer hurt as much when his husband was taking him, and when they were very close and James moved slowly inside him, on those days of the month when the walls of his reproductive tract weren’t as dry, Jay would get that strange, tight feeling in his lower belly, that he had woken up to in the past sometimes, finding the front of his bottoms wet and sticky. His male organ would start swelling then, and James seemed to like it when it happened.  
The only thing that concerned Jay, was the fact that his husband did not seem to care much about their son. Hugo was scared of his father and often cried when he was around, and James in return always looked angrily in Jay’s direction, whenever he was showing the little boy too much affection. Hugo was still sleeping in his nursery by Jay’s bedroom, and when he cried at night, James would not let Jay to go to him.  
‘Please, please...’ begged Jay, kissing his husband and stroking his strong arms pleadingly, until James released his grip and let him go to Hugo, by then crying spasmodically and purple on the face.  
Jay wondered whether the reason that James disliked his son so much was that Hugo so closely resembled his late mother in his looks. Perhaps every time James saw his child, he was painfully reminded of what he had lost, and it was breaking his heart. Jay knew that no matter how hard he tried, he was never going to replace James’s first wife, and he could no longer look at the portrait of the black-haired, handsome fertile, whom James must still loved and missed.  
One night, when left crying for too long, Hugo would not go back to sleep even after he had his bottle, no matter how long Jay held him in his arms.  
‘More cuddles, mama, more cuddles...’ mocked Jay lovingly, when Hugo, standing in his cot, outstretched his hands for him again, his lower lip already trembling warningly. He lifted Hugo from the cot, walking with him around the nursery. ‘I just want more cuddles, is that right? Just like your daddy, just like daddy...’  
‘Put him back in the cot’ Jay heard his husband’s voice, coming from very close.  
He turned around, meeting with James’s angry face.  
‘Put him back!’ roared his husband on top of his voice, startling the baby, now crying loudly and clutching to Jay desperately.  
Jay, paralysed with fear, watched helplessly as James pried screaming Hugo from his arms and threw him back in the cot, where the baby landed on its back. He then grabbed Jay by the arm so strongly, that it was going to leave bruises, and dragged him through the bedroom, and then through the door to his own room, where he pushed Jay onto the bed with so much force, that Jay’s face hit the pillow. Jay could hear his husband returning to Jay’s own bedroom and opening the door onto the staircase widely, calling Caleb through Hugo’s terrified wails. He came back and shut the door between the rooms, before climbing onto the bed and ripping Jay’s nightwear off him so roughly, that the seams and buttons scratched Jay’s skin. He was on top of him next, entering him in one brutal thrust. Jay couldn’t help screaming in pain.  
‘Hugo this, Hugo that, it’s always about the bloody baby’ hissed James through gritted teeth, ignoring the painful grimace on Jay’s face. ‘I’m sick of it.’  
Jay could hear Caleb’s shuffling steps on the landing and sighed in relief, knowing that he would take Hugo upstairs, where the baby would be safe.  
‘I can’t help it, I love him as much as you’ he told James, wrapping his arms around his husband’s neck and back, opening his legs wider to him. Whatever James wanted, Jay was going to give.  
James froze, looking him straight in the eye with a strange expression on his face.  
‘Say it again’ he ordered.  
‘I love him as much as I love you’ repeated Jay.  
‘Again...’  
‘I love...’ the rest of Jay’s words were muffled by his husband’s lips on his own for the first time, and Jay cringed a bit when he felt James’s tongue inside his own mouth – it seemed like such an odd thing to do.  
James seemed to like it, and that was all that mattered. Surrounded by Jay’s arms and with Jay’s legs wrapped around his waist, with his tongue in Jay’s mouth and his male organ deep inside between Jay’s tights, James came with such intensity, that Jay worried for a moment that his husband was going to crush him with his heavy body. He then lay on his side, pulling Jay close and still kissing him, until Jay had to push him away to catch his breath. His husband’s mouth was back on his own as soon as he did, and his hands were everywhere on Jay; his stomach, back, hips and buttocks, feeling and exploring, until James was ready to take him another time that night.  
Jay’s body was sore, his lips red and swollen and the tight feeling back in his stomach, when he fell asleep in his husband’s arms.

 

The Harza winters weren’t as harsh as the ones back in the Capital, and Jay didn’t even need to wear a hat, when his husband took him to the paddocks outside of town.  
James had bought him a beautiful black stallion for Christmas, and laughed when he found out that Jay had never sat on the horse’s back in his life.  
Jay was now sitting in a saddle of a gentle old mare, feeling very out of place, wobbling from side to side with nothing to hold on to, while his husband walked alongside with the reins in his hand, giving Jay his first horse riding lesson.  
‘So you’ve never had a horse before, then?’ asked James conversationally, openly showing his amusement at Jay’s uncoordinated moves.  
‘My uncle had some, but they were only ever used for the carriage’ explained Jay. ‘That was when I was living in the Capital.’  
‘And before that? Why didn’t your father teach you?’  
‘I did not have a father’ answered Jay uncomfortably, not liking where the conversation was going.  
‘Oh, I’m sorry’ said his husband politely, most likely presuming that his father must had died, when Jay was still too young to learn.  
His husband deserved to know, though Jay bravely, deciding to tell the truth.  
‘I’m a whore’s son’ he whispered so quietly, that James could not hear him, and he had to repeat it again.  
James looked at him strangely, but did not ask any more questions.  
‘Are you going to send me away now?’ asked Jay in a small voice.  
‘No’ said his husband firmly, not meeting his eyes. ‘Try to move with the horse like I told you to, rather than bumping up and down like a sack of potatoes’ he added harshly.  
Jay tried to do as he was told, and after a while, he was actually beginning to feel a bit more confident.  
‘What are you doing?’ he screamed anxiously, when his husband whistled and pulled on the rains, bringing the horse to a trot.  
James laughed out loud, running next to him, slipping in the snow.

 

‘You were not born in the Capital, then?’ asked his husband later that evening.  
Jay was looking into his mug of sweet cocoa – it was a rare treat that even the richest families could only afford on special days like Christmas. Jay had never tried it before.  
Jay told his husband about his childhood on the outskirts of the women’s camp, about his mommy’s illness and how he had come to live with his uncle. It was ironic, really, though Jay – it was their first Christmas together, they had such a nice time so far, and now his husband was finding out the truth about him.  
‘You weren’t starving, were you?’ asked James with something that sounded like concern. ‘Back at the camp?’  
Jay shrugged his arms, not knowing how to answer. Him and mommy had never had much to eat, but being skilled gatherers and hunters, they had always managed to feed themselves eventually. To be truthful, Jay had been more likely to go to bed on an empty stomach while living in the Capital, as Greta liked to punish him by taking the meals away, when Jay was still young enough to be afraid of her.  
His husband was looking at him strangely again, and Jay shifted uncomfortably in his armchair by the fire.  
‘What was your childhood like?’ he asked James eventually, trying to break the awkward silence.  
‘I... I grew up here’ started James.  
Jay listened with interest to the account of his husband’s privileged, but lonely childhood, followed by much happier years of his education in the Capital.  
‘My parents already had one son and did not need another. My brother was groomed for the next Leader, and I was, well, the spare one...’ he finished, furrowing his eyebrows.  
‘What happened to him?’ asked Jay, and it was his husband’s turn to look uncomfortable.  
‘He was weak... did not want to be a Leader... He... he run away. With a man’ he stammered.  
Jay gasped loudly. Even he knew that it was a very bad thing.  
‘Well, anyway’ continued James briskly, ‘after his disappearance, father took ill and died of grief. Mother had no choice but to make me an heir, and here I am’ he finished, laughing bitterly.  
How strange, though Jay, that having been born into such different families, they both grew up feeling not as good as everyone else.  
‘Where is he now?’ Jay asked. ‘You mother?’  
‘He went back to the Capital. Couldn’t stand the shame that my brother brought on the family.’  
In the room next door, Hugo started wailing on top of his voice, very affronted by the fact that Vincent would not let him play with the fire poker.  
‘Go, it’s fine...’ said James resignedly, and Jay jumped to his feet.

 

Later that night, before they went to bed, his husband lit all the candles that he could find in Jay’s bedroom.  
‘Lie on your stomach’ he told him, when they were both naked.  
Jay did, and his husband sat on the bed, running his hands over Jay’s hips and buttocks. He then reached to the piles of clothes on the floor and found the pocket of his trousers, taking out a small jar.  
‘Spread your legs’ he said, opening the jar and covering two of his fingers with some liquid substance.  
He inserted his wet fingers into Jay’s reproductive tract, and started kissing Jay’s neck and back. Jay shivered when he felt his husband’s tongue running up and down his spine, while James’s fingers were doing something nice to him down there. Jay could feel the familiar warmth in his stomach, and he knew that his male organ was swelling again.  
‘Look how hard you are’ his husband said, looking at his groin, after he turned him onto his back, his fingers still inside Jay.  
‘Is that good?’ asked Jay uncertainly, and his husband laughed.  
‘You fertiles are nothing like us. Men get aroused so much easier’ said James, and then he took one of Jay’s large nipples into his mouth.  
Jay shivered again, and his hips moved towards his husband’s fingers against his will. He bit his lower lip in embarrassment.  
His husband stopped kissing his nipples and withdrew his fingers from between Jay’s tights. He was now putting more ointment on his hand, and when he kissed Jay on the lips, he also wrapped his slick palm around Jay’s swollen male organ. James was stroking it up and down, making that weird piece of flabby skin around the top move with his hand.  
‘Has anyone touched you there, before you married me?’ James asked when their lips parted. ‘Have you touched someone? Touched yourself? Have you been kissed?’  
Jay turned his head each time, feeling his cheeks burn with embarrassment. Of course he never had; that would be sinful. His husband’s touch on his male organ was making him feel very strange, and he wished that James’s fingers were still inside him; he kept squeezing his tights together, trying to ease the discomfort.  
‘You really don’t know anything, do you?’ asked James, and it sounded like it was a good thing.  
His husband let go of Jay’s male organ, which was now bigger that Jay ever remembered it being and standing by itself – it was red and shiny at the top, where something looking like water started to leak. His husband’s one was already large and hard, too.  
Jay hissed when his husband took him, but not because of pain. If he were worried that his engorged male organ would get in the way, he did not need to be – it fitted nicely between their bodies, even though it was now so sensitive, that it almost hurt, when rubbed underneath against his husband’s stomach.  
‘Move your hips, just like when you were sitting on the horse’ instructed James, when Jay wrapped his legs around his waist.  
Jay did as he was told, and now something was happening inside him, like there was a place there, that really wanted to be rubbed.  
‘It feels strange’ he complained, but his husband told him to keep doing it.  
With each slow move, Jay was in more agony. It felt like his whole body was now red and swollen, and he hid his face in his husband’s neck, moaning pleadingly. It was worst than pain.  
His husband took mercy on him and started moving faster, but that only made matters worse. Jay was now panting painfully, and he felt like he was about to cry with frustration, but then his husband reached down and took him in his hand again, rubbing his male organ and squeezing it hard, while moving faster and deeper inside him. Jay felt his hips jerking violently and his whole upper body lifted from the bed, as an amazing sensation spread over his male organ first, and then lower down around where his husband was inside him, as Jay’s buttocks tightened and relaxed rhythmically, tightened and relaxed...  
Jay only noticed that his husband finished himself, when he collapsed on top of him, like he always did. He was holding James in his arms, the pressure in his groin no longer painful, but heavy and almost pleasant. All of a sudden, he felt very sleepy.  
‘Is that how you feel when you are with me?’ he whispered into his husband’s ear.  
‘Better, much better’ muttered James in a thick voice. ‘You will see next time.’

 

For the rest of the festive period, his husband was teaching Jay horse riding during the day, and how to make his body feel amazing things, when they were in bed together, during the night. Last night, Jay had discovered that when he focused on the sensations coming from his groin and accepted what was happening to him, letting his body do what it wanted, his husband could make him scream. James had wanted to hear it two more times, and now, sitting in the saddle, Jay was sore and a bit uncomfortable, but not enough to stop him from enjoying the beautiful winter scenery around them. His husband knew how much he missed the open space, and Jay could not be any happier when James offered to take him for a ride to the hills.  
They had been talking a lot recently, getting to know each other better, and now Jay felt safe enough to ask the question, that had been playing on his mind for a long time.  
‘Why do you dislike Hugo so much? Is that because he reminds you of his mother?’  
James laughed dryly, and Jay knew that he touched a sore spot.  
‘Why did you not want to marry me? A question for a question’ his husband retorted.  
‘What?’ exclaimed Jay in surprise. ‘Of course I wanted to marry you! Anyway, I asked first.’  
James did not reply and he was scrunching his eyebrows, like he always did, when he was angry. He run ahead of Jay, as if wanting to avoid looking at him.  
Jay caught up, thinking about his husband’s question.  
‘I’m sorry if that’s what it looked like’ he began explaining, choosing his words carefully. ‘You know that I could barely speak Harza back then, and I did not understand what was happening. I saw you standing at the altar and Caleb told me to go to you, but I still couldn’t believe that you wanted to marry me.’  
‘Why would you not believe it? There must’ve been lots of men wanting to marry you back in the Capital’ said his husband lightly, clearly poking fun at him. ‘So many that you don’t ever remember their names!’ the last words James almost shouted, as if trying to challenge Jay to an argument; his eyes were dark and narrow, burning with anger.  
Jay could not believe that his perfect husband was acting in such a hateful manner, as if all of a sudden wanting nothing more, than to humiliate and hurt him to the core.  
‘Why are you being so cruel?’ he asked weakly, his throat tight and eyes prickling.  
James run ahead again, and did not even turn around to see whether Jay was still following him. Jay did, choking on his tears.

 

James was avoiding Jay for the rest of the day, but he still came to sleep in the same bed with him in the evening.  
‘I’m sorry’ cried Jay, throwing himself into his husband’s arms and sighing in relief, when James did not push him away.  
Later that night, when they were both feeling safe and close again, James began to speak.  
‘Hubert was initially intended for my brother. He was a second son of one of the Eastern Leaders, and their marriage was supposed to strengthen the alliance between the shires. After my brother run away, my mother started pressuring me to marry Hubert in his stead. Eventually, I gave in.’  
Jay looked at his husband’s strong, masculine features, now seeming so fragile and vulnerable. He could not stand seeing James so upset and wrapped his arms tighter around him, deeply regretting ever asking about his first wife.  
‘Hubert was much older than me, and he resented the idea of marrying me as much as I did. He missed home and disliked being here’ James continued. ‘He thought us unnatural for not keeping women, and refused to speak in our dialect, calling it primitive. The only reason that I survived over three years of our miserable marriage, was that I travelled away from home whenever I was able to. We were both surprised, when he found out that he was pregnant, as he did not even want my child.’  
As ambivalent as James was about his son, Jay knew that his wife’s attitude towards their baby must have hurt him deeply.  
‘Hubert did not tolerate the pregnancy well, and by the end of it, he was very weak. Then the plague came and we all caught it, Hubert included, and hours before he went into labour. It was a miracle that the twins managed to save him then, but even they couldn’t stop him from dying of the fever two days after Hugo was born.’  
Jay knew that the twin brothers were the local healers, living by themselves in their family home on the outskirts of a nearby village. They were renowned for their extravagant ways and were still unmarried, despite of their age. Jay had been amazed to learn that the Harza people only sustained several losses in the plague, that had claimed the lives of so many children and elders in the Capital, thanks to the twins’ mysterious powders and potions. Despite having a certain respect in the local community, the brothers were still regarded as an oddity, and superstitious Vincent always crossed himself fearfully, before swallowing the medication, that he had bought from them for his lumbago.  
‘Hugo was small and weak when he was born; he hardly even had the strength to cry, and we all feared that we were going to lose him, too. When he started getting stronger, I told myself that I was happy, but in truth I could barely stand to as much as look at him. I hated him for resembling his mother so much, and hated myself even more for feeling relieved that Hubert was dead. I set off with the first convoy after the snow melted, and then the one after that. I was in the Capital, when the news of Hubert’s brother’s death reached me, and I set off for their shire that same day, as by law I was then their Leader. It took months to establish alternative leadership, which was the reason why I was gone for so long, and why I could not bring you home myself.’  
Jay swallowed hard, wondering whether his husband would even look at him, let alone bough him, if he had come to the human hunters in person that summer day, and had been able to choose his wife before his men. Yet, that was not what James wanted to talk about.  
‘There is something that I should have told you before...’ he said, looking at Jay with a strangely nervous expression, that seemed so out of place on his dominant, authoritative husband. ‘Hubert’s brother’s whole family died in the fire with him. Hugo is now the heir to the Leadership in his mother’s shire, and when I went to speak with his grandfather’s relatives, they were more than keen to take over his upbringing.’  
Jay sat up on the bed abruptly, looking in terror at his husband. James’s face blanched and he opened his mouth as if trying to speak, but Jay wasn’t interested in what he had to say anymore.  
As soon as James’s words reached his ears, Jay understood immediately how his mommy had managed to escape a mob of angry women, and then build a house for Jay, despite of severe burns, that had left her with only one eye; he even understood why Greta had sold him to the human hunters and risked everything, trying to protect her daughters. If James was going to send Hugo back to his mother’s shire, Jay was coming with him, and there wasn’t a thing in the world that was going to change that.  
‘Take my son away from me, and you will never see me again’ Jay glared fiercely into his husband’s rather frightened eyes.  
‘Calm down, darling, calm down...’ his husband was saying, trying to hug him, when he saw that Jay shed a few tears. ‘I am fully aware of the pecking order in this family’ he added a bit grumpily.  
‘He’s yours now’ James said, when Jay was lying by his side again. ‘The moment I saw you with Hugo in your arms, I knew that we had to keep him. All I’m saying is that when Hugo is a bit older, his family will want him to visit regularly to prepare him for taking over the Leadership in future. We are going to have to learn to share. You won’t leave me, will you?’ he added jokingly, but with a hint of fear in his voice.  
‘No’ stated Jay dryly, a bit ashamed of how his husband’s concern touched his heart, and how much he enjoyed it. It seemed that James cared about him a little, after all.  
‘Do you want children of your own?’ asked his husband softly some time later, looking at Jay with that odd nervousness again.  
‘Why do you think I sleep with my bum on the pillow?’ asked Jay rhetorically.  
‘Is that supposed to help?’  
His husband always looked at him strangely when Jay held his hips raised after they had been together, but he’d never asked for an explanation before. Jay knew what he was doing – if he kept his lower body elevated, he gave his husband’s seed the best chance of finding a way deep inside him, increasing the likelihood of conception.  
‘That’s what the book said’ answered Jay innocently.  
‘What book?’  
‘The one about having babies’ he admitted, blushing slightly.  
James raised his eyebrows sceptically, but then he seemed to think better of it, and he pulled the pillow on which he normally slept from under his head, shoving it under Jay’s hips instead.

 

Shortly after the snow melted, the gold and gemstone miners and Northern and Capital traders started queuing outside of the Town Hall, ready to start negotiating the deals for the year. Jay was watching them in fascination, and when his husband asked if he wanted to come and listen to the Council one day, Jay nodded enthusiastically.  
Jay was surprised to discover how many fertiles were working in the Town Hall – several mature-looking ones were sat at the negotiations table with maps and rolls of paper in front of them, and some other two were even ordering the men about, most likely holding the more senior positions.  
The first trader entered the room and the Council started. To Jay’s surprise, most of the negotiations were held in Main, although only several men and one fertile could speak the language, and none of them as well as his husband, although still able to translate it discreetly for the other people in the room.  
The Capital trader was opposing the price that he was being given for his large order of sapphires.  
‘Outrageous!’ he complained, his round face red and sweaty. ‘I could get three times as much from the Northern mines for that, you know that as well as I do. And they will be twice as large as the sand grains, that you are trying to sell here.’  
His husband furrowed his eyebrows angrily, and Jay could tell that he was torn between losing profit, and losing a customer. He prodded James on the leg with his shoe under the table gently, and when his husband did not react, he then kicked him strongly on the shin.  
‘What do you think you are doing?’ his angry husband demanded an explanation, when Jay eventually managed to convince him to speak to him in private.  
‘He’s bluffing’ Jay was talking fast, pointing back to the room where the insidious trader was being kept waiting. ‘I know for certain that half of the Northern mines were flooded last spring, and the remaining ones are running low. And even though they are much bigger, the Northern sapphires are nowhere near as clear and bright, as the Southern ones. You are guaranteed to get twice the price that you are currently asking, three times that, if you play it well.’  
His husband was now looking both angry and stunned, and Jay was beginning to lose confidence in his judgement of the Capital trader’s manipulations. He was now feeling very small and rather stupid.  
James dragged him back to the negotiations table without as much as looking at him. To Jay’s surprise, he then followed his advice and more than doubled the asking price, repeating the information that Jay had just given. The trader’s face fell, but he nodded grumpily in agreement, admitting his defeat.  
Everyone’s eyes were on Jay, and they were all looking like they were full of questions.

 

At the end of their long working day, when his husband was called away by his secretary, all the Main-speaking people surrounded Jay, curious and keen to get to know him better.  
‘Perhaps you would be kind enough to offer the Council your consultation from time to time, if that’s not too much to ask’ said an important-looking man respectfully, when Jay explained about the education that he had received back at his uncle’s house. ‘I could see that benefitting your people greatly, sir.’  
‘A couple of hours once a week, for a start?’ chipped in the confident Main-speaking fertile cheekily, and everyone laughed.  
His husband’s face looked like a stormy cloud, when he returned to find his wife analysing in concentration the maps unfolded for him by the important-looking man. The man let go of the maps at the sight of his angry Leader, and the paper rolled back up on the table in front of Jay’s eyes. Jay stood up quickly to stand by James’s side obediently, and then followed him back home in heavy silence. Jay knew better than to ask if he could join his husband at the negotiations table ever again.

 

Few days later, Jay spotted a familiar face in the crowd gathered in front of the Town Hall, when him and Caleb went out shopping that morning. Jay was hardly surprised, having expected it to happen since he saw the first traders arriving from the Capital.  
His husband was no longer as angry with him for the incident at the Council, and Jay decided that it was worth taking the risk later that day, when James was resting in front of the fire, with his stomach full of dinner, and a glass of whisky in his hand.  
‘I saw my uncle in town today’ said Jay, sipping on his own whisky. ‘Could we invite him to dinner?’  
‘It’s your house, so do as you see fit’ answered James cryptically. ‘I’m due to see him tomorrow, I can invite him then’ he added.  
‘Why do you even want to see him?’ asked his husband later, when they were already in bed. ‘I thought that you weren’t happy, living with him...’  
Jay noticed that his husband seemed to be strangely quiet and preoccupied with thoughts all evening, and now he knew that he wasn’t imagining a worried look in James’s eyes, ever since Jay had mentioned his uncle.  
‘He was kind to me... I miss him...’ Jay whispered softly, sleepy and still shaken by their last time together.  
James still seemed sad and concerned, and kissed Jay with strange intensity, as if he were not going to see him for a long time.

 

Uncle looked much older than he remembered, and Jay wondered how badly the deaths of his three youngest children had affected him.  
Uncle brought a toy for Hugo, and pinched the boy in Jay’s arms on the cheek playfully.  
‘Are you happy, little one?’ he asked Jay quietly, when they walked side by side to the dining room.  
‘Very happy, uncle!’ answered Jay from his heart, and his uncle’s tired eyes brightened a little.  
‘How is Greta?’ asked Jay, when they were all sat at the table.  
Uncle grunted, looking around the dining room uncomfortably. He knew that Vincent or Caleb, who always ate with the family, would not be able to understand him, but James, sitting at Jay’s right, was a different matter altogether.  
‘She is my wife no longer’ said uncle eventually, avoiding Jay’s eyes. ‘She was sent to the women’s camp last summer, after... after what she’d done.’  
Caleb’s arrival with the first course saved Jay from the uncomfortable silence, that filled the room after uncle’s words.  
After dinner, they moved to the drawing room. James left them on their own after sharing a customary glass of wine with uncle, but Jay knew that he would still be able to hear every word from where he was listening in the room next door.  
‘What happened to the girls?’ asked Jay, unable to help himself. He had to know.  
‘They are now living with their mother’s family’ answered uncle dryly ‘and if they ever want to see them married, they are going to have to pay for it themselves.’  
At least they weren’t sent to the camp with their mother, thought Jay in relief. That would be a certain death of them.  
‘It was the eldest one, who told me what her mother had done’ started uncle, determined to give Jay an explanation that he deserved. ‘Greta told me that you had run away, but the girls missed you, and they were angry with their mother. The eldest one had seen her uncle carrying you outside, and she came to me, hoping that I would bring you back home. Maybe I should pay for her dowry after all, I owe her that much...’  
‘It wasn’t just Greta; you know that she was never smart enough to plan something like that all by herself...’ Jay interrupted, pitying the woman who met such a terrible end.  
‘Her brother is wealthy and well connected, Jay’ retorted uncle. ‘He said that Greta had made him believe that she’d been following my orders.’  
They sat in uncomfortable silence again. Jay was looking everywhere, except at his uncle, unwilling to meet his eyes. When he finally did, he found uncle in tears.  
‘I did you wrong, little one, and for that I was punished’ sobbed uncle, as Jay sat on the floor at his feet, taking uncle’s hand in his own. ‘I should have taken you to the Academy like your mother wanted you to... I should have never locked you up in my house.’  
‘You wanted what was best for me, uncle...’ Jay was saying comfortingly. ‘You were always very good to me...’  
‘You don’t know half of it!’ exclaimed uncle desperately, pushing Jay’s hand away and hiding his face in his silk handkerchief, his shoulders shaking in silent sobs.  
Jay could do nothing else but return to his own seat, and when uncle raised his head again, his face was red, and his eyes swollen and bloodshot.  
‘I never advertised, little one’ pronounced uncle with great pain in his voice. ‘All those years, I let you believe that no one ever wanted to marry you, and I listened as you cried yourself to sleep every night.’  
Jay heard every word of his uncle’s confession, but he was not yet able to understand the meaning behind it. Jay knew that he should be shocked by the sudden revelation, angry or disappointed, or at least maybe burst into tears, but he could not find anything inside himself anymore; he was just an empty shell.  
‘I was made a first offer on you when you were barely twelve, after I had taken you to your first matchmaking party. The buyer was willing to wait until you were old enough to be married, of course, but he was determined to secure the deal straightaway. I turned him down, just like I did with another five, that placed an offer before your fourteenth birthday. By the time you were sixteen, hardly a week went by during my stay in the Capital, when someone would not show an interest in you, even after I withdrew you from the society. Some... some offers were better and more persistent than others, but by then I became rather skilled at discouraging the men, who had fallen in love with you.’  
The clock was ticking in the silence that filled the room once again, and Jay could hear Hugo’s little steps, coming from the nursery upstairs. His husband was in the room next door, listening to uncle’s every word. Jay wondered whether knowing the truth was going to change their life in some way, and whether it was going to be for better, or for the worse.  
‘Aren’t you going to ask why?’ whispered his uncle pleadingly, but Jay just looked at him blankly.  
‘I wanted you for myself’ uttered uncle, choking on fresh tears. ‘I hoped that if you believed yourself defective, you would eventually agree to accept me, if I asked for your hand. I loved you dearly, and I could not stand the thought of parting with you.’  
Uncle was weeping and trembling again, and Jay went to him, patting him on the shoulder comfortingly.  
‘Water under the bridge, uncle, water under the bridge...’ Jay heard himself saying.  
‘Do you forgive me, then?’ asked uncle through tears.  
‘Of course I do’ stated Jay confidently, and the words echoed loudly in the empty space inside his chest.  
Uncle wiped his face and accepted another glass of wine gladly from Jay’s hand, and they moved on to discussing the current gold market, and how that affected uncle’s trading business.  
‘It all sounds very good’ praised Jay. ‘Are you going to get yourself a new wife, then?’  
‘I can afford at least three with what I have been given for you’ answered uncle with a guilty smile.  
‘Do the human hunters pay that well?’ wondered Jay.  
‘Just speak to your husband’ said his uncle mysteriously.  
Jay walked him to the front door, saying his goodbyes.  
‘Please visit whenever you are in these parts. You are always welcome in my house.’  
‘I will, little one. And tell your husband not to undersell the sapphires, there is a shortage on the market!’  
‘I know’ replied Jay.

 

Jay washed and put away the empty wine glasses, checked on Hugo sleeping in his cot, and rinsed and soaked the beans for tomorrow’s dinner, but his husband was still hiding from him. He found James in the library, rummaging through a thick volume with his fingers trembling, a large pile of books already stack on the desk.  
‘I thought that... if you still want to work at the Town Hall...’ his husband was muttering absurdly with his back still turned to Jay. ‘These could be helpful... there’s even my old dictionary there somewhere, so you can check the words that you don’t know...  
‘What did my uncle mean, when he said that I should talk to you?’ Jay went straight to the point.  
James turned to face him, and Jay was startled when he saw the tears in his eyes. His husband never cried, not even when talking about his first wife.  
‘What did he mean?’ Jay kept asking, even when he was already wrapped tightly in his husband’s arms, who was clutching to Jay for dear life.  
James would not answer. Jay was sick and tired of men, hiding the truth and then crying in front of him, so that they could do as they pleased with him. He freed himself from his husband’s embrace roughly and run upstairs, knocking on Caleb’s and Vincent’s door.  
They weren’t sleeping yet, and Caleb only needed to take one look at Jay’s face, to push his confused husband out of their double bed and then out onto the stairs, ordering him to keep an eye on Hugo. He then closed the door, and took Jay by the hand.  
They sat on the bed, facing each other, and Jay started giving the account of his uncle’s betrayal in broken Harza. Caleb listened attentively, stroking Jay’s hand with both of his own. Once Jay started talking, he could not stop; he told Caleb about his mommy walking into the ocean, about Greta’s cruelty and about waiting for a marriage offer, that never came, about Rosie dying, and about how he had cried in the locked carriage that night in the forest, when nobody wanted him. He told Caleb everything that he could never tell his husband, and only when listening to his voice did he understand how sad and full of pain his life had been. The emptiness was no longer, and Jay could cry now, and Caleb hugged him just like his mommy used to do, because Caleb was a mother himself and he understood. Jay fell asleep in his arms, so glad that finally someone was feeling sorry for him, that Caleb now knew what Jay had been through.  
His husband came for him later that night, and woke Jay up when trying to lift him from the bed, his arms under Jay’s back and knees.  
‘Leave me, I don’t want you!’ cried Jay in Harza, crawling back into Caleb’s arms.  
James left.

 

When his husband returned from the Town Hall the following evening, Jay was waiting by the front door, as usual.  
‘I’m sorry about yesterday’ Jay said. ‘I was very upset.’  
James would not let him out of his arms for a long time.  
His husband had bought him some rather excessive gold jewellery, and Caleb lifted his eyebrows ironically when him and Jay exchanged looks. James was definitely on his best behaviour all evening, and he even attempted to play with Hugo, despite being bitten and spat on by his son.  
Caleb took Hugo away for the night, most likely as instructed by James.  
‘Can I tell you now? I really must tell you’ his husband was pacing up and down on the bedroom floor nervously, waiting for Jay to finish getting ready for bed. It was clear that he had been preparing himself for that moment for the whole day.  
‘I wasn’t being very nice to you at first, and I could not feel any more guilty than I do now...’ he started with his well-rehearsed speech.  
‘You were nice; nicer than I ever wished for’ interrupted Jay.  
‘Yes, Jay, but that still does not amount to much, all things considered’ snapped his husband irritably, forgetting what he was trying to say.  
James sighed heavily, getting on the bed next to Jay, but not touching him, as if afraid that Jay would run away again. They were both lying on their sides, facing each other, and his husband still looked as anxious, as on the day when Jay had threatened to leave him, if he sent Hugo away.  
‘You were only fourteen when I first saw you’ James said softly, smiling at the memory. ‘You were at the fair with your uncle, and I though it strange, that you weren’t smiling at all. You had a golden scarf wrapped around your neck, and two gold rings on your fingers. You were wearing a green jacket and a white shirt underneath. I followed your uncle’s carriage that day, to find out where you lived.’  
Jay remembered that jacket; it had been his favourite one. He did not remember that particular fair, but he had been to enough of them to know that it would be crowded with students. Jay knew that his husband had completed his education in the Capital, but it never crossed his mind that they might have met before. Yet, after his uncle’s revelation last evening, Jay was now prepared to believe anything.  
‘That day, I wrote to my parents that I changed my mind about leaving University, knowing that I would be able to stay in the Capital for another two years. I became obsessed with you; I even sat on the church’s roof, because when I strained my eyes, I could see you hanging laundry in the corner of the garden, and when your uncle took you to the beach, I would hide behind the ice-cream stalls to look at you. I found out who you were, and by the time you were sixteen, I notified my parents. Maybe we did not belong to the same society, but my father’s position as a Leader, and my mother’s family connections meant as much as the money, and we were offering all three. My brother was still here back then, and mother couldn’t care less who I wanted to marry, as long as it was a fertile. When my father came to the Capital with the next convoy, we made an offer on your hand, declaring that we were ready to double whatever the highest bid on you was going to be, until you reached your adulthood.’  
Jay had already figured out that something along similar lines must have happened – his uncle’s mention of the “persistent offers” was a clear giveaway. He was still touched by his husband’s commitment and generosity, though.  
‘Your uncle let us believe that he was going to speak with you, and then returned, sad to inform that his nephew had no intention of marrying someone “uncivilised”. To say that we were offended would be a great understatement.’  
Jay wondered how many of the meetings that his uncle had held in his office had been, in fact, about him. He had even walked in on some of them, Jay realised with terror. It felt surreal and to top it all, Jay had to admit that back then, he probably would have considered someone from the Southern shires to be less civilised. He almost had to suppress a laugh now.  
‘I returned home and eventually married Hubert, as you are aware, but as angry and disappointed as I was by your rejection, I still could not stop thinking about you. Then, last summer, when I was in the Capital, your uncle came to me, in tears and despairing at losing you, knowing that I would know how to buy you back from the human hunters. I hated you, but I still wanted you as much as I ever had. Your uncle was willing to pay any price for you, but then, so was I. Eventually, he realised that giving you to me was the only choice that he had, and he accepted my offer, hoping that at least you would be with someone, who cared about you. The day that we signed the contract, the news about Hugo’s uncle came, and it felt like you were slipping away from my hands again.’  
‘Uncle was willing to lose money to get me back?’ Jay could not help asking, and his heart melted at the hurt look in his husband’s eyes. After all that James had gone through to make Jay his, his wife was now more concerned about his uncle, and Jay couldn’t help, but take James into his arms and kiss him.  
‘He really does care about you, Jay, but not as much as I do’ his husband said firmly, and Jay kissed him again.  
‘I really wanted to hate you when we finally married, but I couldn’t....’ James’s voice broke off.’ You were trying so hard to be a perfect wife, you bit your nails when you were nervous or upset, and jumped at the smallest noise. I’m so sorry, if I only knew... I was being so stupid...’  
His husband needed comforting, and Jay began rocking him in his arms, pressing his lips to James’s forehead. Jay wasn’t angry with him at all anymore, but he wasn’t going to tell James that just yet.  
This morning, Caleb had taught Jay few things, that were supposed to make life of every Harza wife much easier. Caleb had said that it was necessary for husbands to feel guilty sometimes, as it kept them in good shape. Jay had always been a quick learner.  
His husband was as perfect in his eyes as ever, and for the life of him Jay could see no error of James’s ways. The thought that during the saddest years of his life he had a secret admirer, willing to hang from the rooftops to catch a glimpse of him, warmed Jay’s heart – could anything be more romantic than that? He thought lovingly of the devoted young man, whose dreams and hopes had been crushed so cruelly by Jay’s two-faced uncle, wishing that there was something that he could have done to prevent him from his suffering.  
Perhaps it wasn’t completely right of his husband to hide the truth from him, but then Jay was to blame as well. If only he had the courage to tell his husband everything that he had said to Caleb last night, he would have saved both of them a great deal of pain. They were equally responsible for the problems in their marriage, just like Hubert most likely hadn’t been the only one, making James’s first relationship so difficult.  
But now the truth had been revealed, and they were going to live happily ever after.  
‘Southern men are really not the smartest’ Jay pointed out to his husband.  
‘I know, I know...’ muttered James into Jay’s chest, wrapping his arms tightly around his wife’s waist.


End file.
